Anjouan casino licence in the UK: what offshore authorisation really buys a GB player
Available in GBThe phrase “Anjouan-licensed casino” shows up in marketing copy as though it answered the same question as “Gambling Commission-licensed casino.” It doesn’t. One is a remote operating licence issued by an offshore authority on a small island in the Comoros archipelago. The other is the licence required by the Gambling Act 2005, read with the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014, for any operator taking deposits from players in Great Britain. The two licences govern different markets, carry different obligations, and produce very different experiences for a UK resident who opens an account. The page below works through what the Anjouan authorisation actually covers, what it does not, and what a player comparing it to a GB-licensed brand is genuinely choosing between.
Current as of 23 September 2026 against the Gambling Commission’s public register of gambling businesses (gamblingcommission.gov.uk).
- How this page is built
- The fundamentals of the Anjouan authorisation
- Legality: what the Gambling Act and the 2014 Act actually do
- Responsible gaming: what the licence choice actually costs the player
- A worked example: what the 10x wagering cap means on a bonus
- Reading the brands against the licence choice
- What the comparison actually answers
- Reading the regulator’s own register
- Frequently asked questions
How this page is built
The shelves below mirror the legal shape of the question rather than the order a search engine returns results. The top of the page sets out ten GB-licensed brands drawn straight from the Commission register, because the comparison only makes sense once the licensed alternative is in front of the reader. From there the piece works back to the offshore authorisation itself, then to the legality question, then to the safeguards that follow from the licence choice, and finishes with a worked example of what a 10x wagering cap actually costs a bonus.
The ten brands on the register this comparison is built around
Ten remote casino operating licences dominate the GB-licensed market that a player comparing options will meet most often. Each sits on the Gambling Commission’s public register against the licence account that runs it, and each must honour GAMSTOP self-exclusion, the stake limits for online slots, the wagering cap and the rest of the social responsibility code. Several brands share a single licensee, which matters when something goes wrong at one site and a player wonders where to complain.
The register snapshot taken on 18 September 2026 recorded 139 businesses holding an active remote casino operating licence, with 1065 active and 361 white-label domain entries — a white-label site trades under another company’s licence. The licences cited below are the same snapshot.
| Brand | Licence holder and GB remote casino licence | Domain status on the register | Subject support |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paddy Power | PPB Games Limited · 039411-R-319335-010 (account 39411) | Active | — |
| Unibet | Platinum Gaming Limited · 045322-R-324275-019 (account 45322) | Active | — |
| Sky Vegas | Bonne Terre Gaming Limited · 065519-R-339675-002 (account 65519) | Active | — |
| kwiff | Eaton Gate Gaming Limited · 044448-R-323408-017 (account 44448) | Active | — |
| bet365 | Hillside (UK Gaming) ENC · 055149-R-331499-004 (account 55149) | Active | — |
| MrQ | Tek Fox Ltd · 060629-R-337532-004 (account 60629) | Active | — |
| Midnite | Dribble Media Limited · 042647-R-321653-022 (account 42647) | Active | — |
| Virgin Games | Gamesys Operations Limited · 038905-R-319430-022 (account 38905) | White Label | — |
| BetVictor | BV Gaming Limited · 039576-R-319370-028 (account 39576) | Active | — |
| Grosvenor Casinos | Rank Interactive (Gibraltar) Limited · 057924-R-334666-005 (account 57924) | Active | — |
What the table is showing, and what it isn’t: every row is a domain a player can verify by searching the Commission register, and every licence number follows the specific remote operating licence format. The empty cells under “Subject support” carry the no-data marker on purpose — none of these ten brands is licensed by Anjouan, and “no-data” is the honest answer to a question whose answer is negative.
A note on shared licensees: PPB Games Limited (Paddy Power) and LC International Limited (which runs Ladbrokes, Coral and Gala Bingo) sit under the same Flutter group, and several white-label brands on the register run on a third party’s licence account. When a player files a complaint, the licensee of record is the entity that responds to the Commission, not the trading brand on the homepage.
Why the comparison sits before the explanation
Two reasons. The first is that “Anjouan casino” only means something by contrast with the licensed alternative, and the licensed alternative is concrete — a list of brands, account numbers and licence suffixes that can be looked up this afternoon. The second is that the legal question is settled in the GB player’s favour regardless of where the licence was issued, so the practical question is what protection is gained by sticking to a GB-licensed site. The reader who already has a brand in mind will find it in the table above; the reader who wants the offshore angle can move straight to the next shelf.
The fundamentals of the Anjouan authorisation
Anjouan is the easternmost island of the Comoros archipelago in the south-western Indian Ocean, an autonomous island within the Union of the Comoros with its capital at Mutsamudu. The Anjouan Offshore Finance Authority was established in 2002 to promote the island as an offshore financial centre and tax haven. The Central Bank of Comoros stated in 2014 that no licence had been delivered for offshore financial activities on Anjouan and that it does not recognise licences issued by the Anjouan Offshore Finance Authority.
Anjouan Gaming, styled the “Internet Gaming Regulatory Authority”, operates under that offshore authority and issues separate B2C and B2B internet gaming licences. The authorisation is real in the sense that the paperwork exists, the fees are paid and the issuing body has a public-facing brand. It is not a recognition by the Comorian state that gambling is licensed — GIABA’s May 2024 mutual evaluation report on the Union of the Comoros, based on an on-site visit in July 2023, records that gambling is prohibited under the Comorian Penal Code. The licence is therefore an island-level authorisation, not a national one, and that distinction will matter again when a player considers what recourse they have if a withdrawal stalls.
What an Anjouan licence authorises, in plain terms
The B2C internet gaming licence issued by Anjouan Gaming allows the operator to host casino games, slots, live dealer tables and (depending on the package) sports betting from a jurisdiction that does not tax the operator’s gross gaming yield and does not require the same player-protection architecture as a GB-licensed site. The licence is portable: an operator registered in any country can hold it, and a player from any country can (in principle) open an account. What it does not authorise is the act of taking deposits from a player in Great Britain, because that act is governed by a different statute on the player’s end and is not in Anjouan’s gift to permit.
Why the Comoros location still appears in GB-facing marketing
Three reasons, in declining importance. First, the licence fee and ongoing compliance cost are a fraction of a Maltese, Isle of Man or Commission licence. Second, the operator’s domicile becomes irrelevant for the operator’s tax bill — Anjouan charges no gaming tax — which is why the same operator often runs parallel brands on parallel licences. Third, the licence is issued quickly and the paperwork is public-facing, which makes it easy for a comparison site to copy onto a page. None of those reasons is a player protection.
Legality: what the Gambling Act and the 2014 Act actually do
The legal frame for any UK-facing online casino is set by two statutes. The Gambling Act 2005, which received royal assent on 7 April 2005, established the Gambling Commission as the regulator for Great Britain and set objectives of preventing crime, ensuring fairness, and protecting children and vulnerable people. The Act covers Great Britain — England, Scotland and Wales — and not Northern Ireland, which has its own regime.
Before the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014, operators licensed in the European Economic Area, Gibraltar or “white-listed” jurisdictions such as Alderney, the Isle of Man, Tasmania and Antigua and Barbuda could serve Great Britain customers without a Gambling Commission licence. The 2014 Act came into force on 1 December 2014 and requires any remote gambling operator transacting with or advertising to consumers in Great Britain to hold a Gambling Commission operating licence, regardless of where the operator is based, and to pay 15% point-of-consumption tax on gross gambling yield from GB customers. Under the 2014 Act’s point-of-consumption regime, providing or advertising remote gambling facilities to GB consumers without a Gambling Commission licence is a criminal offence, regardless of any licence — including an Anjouan one — the operator holds elsewhere.
Why “but they’re licensed” is not a defence
A common framing on offshore review sites is that an operator is “licensed and regulated” because it holds an Anjouan, Curaçao or similar authorisation. That framing answers the wrong question. The statute makes it an offence to provide remote gambling to a GB consumer without a Commission licence; the operator’s offshore licence is irrelevant to that test. Section 33 of the Gambling Act 2005 is the offence, and the absence of a Commission licence is the actus reus. The Commission disrupts illegal sites — cease-and-desist notices, search-engine delisting, payment and hosting referrals — but has no ISP-blocking power, so a brand can stay reachable from a GB IP for some time after the Commission has flagged it.
What the operator risk looks like
For a GB-licensed operator the risk is civil and regulatory: licence review, fines, conditions on the operating licence, in extreme cases revocation. For an offshore-only operator the risk is criminal, and the burden falls on the operator, not on the player. A player who deposits at an unlicensed site commits no offence under the Act, but loses access to the Commission’s complaints route, to GAMSTOP enforcement and to the rest of the protective architecture that the licence requires.
The deposit at a GB-licensed site as a verification event
At a Commission-licensed online casino the first deposit is itself a regulated event. Name, address and date of birth are verified before any first deposit or any play, and have been since 7 May 2019. The verification is part of the licence condition, not a courtesy the operator chooses to extend, and it is the same condition that drives the operator’s duty to interact with GAMSTOP when a player has self-excluded. An offshore-only site is under no equivalent obligation; in practice many do verify, some do not, and the difference shows up most clearly when a withdrawal is paused for a source-of-funds review.
Responsible gaming: what the licence choice actually costs the player
The 2014 Act’s effect on a player is not a single rule but a stack of obligations the operator takes on at licence grant, each of which translates into a feature the player either has or does not have. The features below are mandatory at every GB-licensed online casino; at an Anjouan-licensed site none of them is required.
Mandatory GAMSTOP self-exclusion
GAMSTOP, the national online self-exclusion scheme, is a mandatory condition of every online licence since 31 March 2020. Self-exclusion periods run six months, one year or five years, and cannot be cancelled early. An Anjouan-licensed site is not required to be a GAMSTOP member and is not required to honour a player’s existing exclusion. For a player who has self-excluded, that asymmetry is the whole answer: a GB-licensed site will refuse to open the account, an Anjouan-licensed site will not. The same gap cuts the other way for an operator that wants to take that player’s deposit — one is barred from doing so by licence condition, the other is not.
Stake and wagering caps, and the bonus cap in particular
Online slots carry a maximum stake per game cycle — £5 for players aged 25 and over (from 9 April 2025) and £2 for 18-24 (from 21 May 2025). There is no state-set deposit or loss ceiling, but operators must prompt a customer to set a financial limit before the first deposit (from 31 October 2025). Since 31 October 2021 auto-play is banned, a slot spin may not be faster than 2.5 seconds, and losses disguised as wins are banned. Since 19 December 2025 wagering requirements are capped at 10x and mixed-product bonuses — the bet-on-sport, get-casino-spins type — are banned. Each of these is a licence condition, not a commercial choice. An Anjouan-licensed site runs on its own house rules; nothing in this list is forced on it.
ID checks and anonymous play
Anonymous play is not possible at a licensed site. The verification regime that catches a player’s first deposit also gates the rest of the lifecycle: source-of-funds reviews above the financial vulnerability trigger (£150 net deposits in a rolling 30 days, from 28 February 2025), enhanced checks at higher thresholds, and ADR referral when an operator’s own decision is challenged. An Anjouan-licensed site that does verify is doing so on its own terms, and one that does not is making a different choice. The player cannot tell from the lobby which case they are in until the moment a withdrawal is paused.
Credit cards and payment routing
Credit cards are banned for gambling at GB-licensed sites since 14 April 2020, including credit cards routed through e-wallets. That rule binds the operator, not the player — a player with a credit card in their e-wallet will be refused at a Commission-licensed site and accepted at most offshore-licensed sites. The same asymmetry applies to other payment features: the operator cannot route a credit card through Apple Pay or a third-party wallet to circumvent the ban, because the ban sits at the gambling transaction, not at the funding instrument.
Where to get help
National Gambling Helpline (GamCare) and GambleAware are the publicly funded entry points for anyone in Great Britain whose gambling has become a problem. They are independent of the Commission and of any operator. The helpline is reachable through GamCare’s site and the National Gambling Treatment Service routes referrals from there; GambleAware funds research, treatment and the public information layer. These services are free to use regardless of whether the player has been playing at a GB-licensed site, at an Anjouan-licensed site, or at both.
A worked example: what the 10x wagering cap means on a bonus
Since 19 December 2025 the bonus terms a GB-licensed casino can offer are constrained by a 10x cap on wagering requirements, and mixed-product bonuses are banned. The arithmetic of the cap is straightforward, and the page below uses it to show what the headline “100% up to £100” actually costs a player.
This calculation demonstrates the impact of the cap. It is a statistical estimate, not a guaranteed outcome: an average over many spins under the stated assumptions, and not a promise of any particular payout.
The inputs
Assume a £100 cash bonus with a 10x wagering requirement, played entirely on online slots at the legal maximum stake of £5 per spin and at a representative slot RTP of 96%. The wagering requirement is met on the bonus amount alone (no deposit contribution), which is the most favourable reading the cap permits.
The turnover
Required turnover = bonus × wagering factor = £100 × 10 = £1,000.
At the maximum legal stake of £5 per spin, the number of spins needed to clear the bonus is £1,000 ÷ £5 = 200 spins. At a minimum spin duration of 2.5 seconds — the lower bound set by the auto-play ban — the 200 spins take 500 seconds, or just over eight minutes, in pure spin time.
The expected loss
Expected loss = required turnover × (1 − RTP) = £1,000 × 0.04 = £40.
That £40 is the cost, on average, of clearing the bonus before any payout. A player who finishes the wagering requirement and cashes out a £100 bonus has, on average, paid £40 for the privilege of doing so — a 40% haircut on the headline number.
What changes when the bonus is bigger
The arithmetic scales linearly with the bonus size, so the same calculation for a £200 bonus gives a £2,000 turnover, 400 spins and an £80 expected loss. For a £500 bonus the figures rise to a £5,000 turnover, 1,000 spins and a £200 expected loss. The expected-loss percentage of the bonus stays at 40% across the band as long as the RTP assumption holds, and the spin count at the £5 stake is bonus ÷ 0.5 (200 spins per £100 of bonus).
What changes when the slot RTP is lower
Most slot RTPs sit between 94% and 97%, and the expected loss moves with them. At 94% RTP the expected loss on the £100 bonus rises from £40 to £60; at 97% it falls to £30. The shape is the same; only the band moves. A player chasing a low-RTP slot for variety reasons is paying for the choice out of the bonus before any payout.
What an Anjouan-licensed site is not bound by
The 10x cap is a GB-licence condition. An Anjouan-licensed site can set any wagering multiple it likes and can offer mixed-product bonuses that the GB rules would not permit. A higher headline bonus on an offshore site is not “more generous” in any sense the wagering arithmetic respects; the cost the player pays to clear it is set by the multiple and the RTP, and the cap exists because higher multiples were producing bonuses whose headline figure bore no relation to what the player actually received. The cap is the GB answer to that problem; the offshore market still runs on it.
Reading the brands against the licence choice
The ten brands in the table at the top of the page all sit on the same side of that choice, and the per-brand notes below work through what the licence holder, the licence number and the white-label or active status on the register actually tell a player. The notes are descriptive rather than ranking: the GB-licence conditions are uniform across the set, and the differences below concern corporate structure, brand familiarity and the regulatory history a player can read off the register.
Paddy Power
Paddy Power operates under account 39411, PPB Games Limited, which holds the active remote casino operating licence 039411-R-319335-010. PPB is the operator of record and the entity that responds to Commission action; the trading brand on the homepage is what the player sees, but the licence is the company’s. The Paddy Power name covers sports, casino and a poker room under the same licence account.
Unibet
Unibet is a domain belonging to account 45322, Platinum Gaming Limited, holder of the remote casino operating licence 045322-R-324275-019. Platinum Gaming is part of the Kindred group structure; the GB licence is what lets the unibet.co.uk domain operate, and the player is dealing with the UK entity for any Commission-route complaint. The .co.uk domain, rather than the .com, is the Commission-licensed one.
Sky Vegas
Sky Vegas operates using account 65519, Bonne Terre Gaming Limited, which possesses the remote casino operating licence 065519-R-339675-002. Bonne Terre Gaming is the GB operator of record; the wider Sky gaming umbrella sits inside the same structure. Sky Vegas’s product is slots-first, and the licence carries the same slot-cycle stake limits as every other brand on the register.
kwiff
kwiff is a domain of account 44448, Eaton Gate Gaming Limited, with the remote casino operating licence 044448-R-323408-017. The brand’s distinctive feature — random “super-charged” odds on individual bets — sits inside the GB stake and wagering envelope, so the random boost cannot push a spin above the £5 cap on a 25+ account or above the £2 cap on an 18-24 account.
bet365
bet365 operates under account 55149, Hillside (UK Gaming) ENC, maintaining the remote casino operating licence 055149-R-331499-004. The bet365 brand is the GB-facing one. Hillside is a large licensee with multiple domains on the register; the licence number on the Commission’s download is the one to cite in any dispute.
MrQ
MrQ is a platform of account 60629, Tek Fox Ltd, holding the remote casino operating licence 060629-R-337532-004. MrQ positions itself as a no-wagering casino; under the 19 December 2025 cap, a wagering-free bonus sits at zero multiples, which is comfortably inside the 10x ceiling.
Midnite
Midnite is a domain of account 42647, Dribble Media Limited, which is granted the remote casino operating licence 042647-R-321653-022. Midnite’s product range covers sports and casino; the licence account is the entity the Commission holds responsible, and the trading brand is the one the player sees.
Virgin Games
Virgin Games is listed on the Gambling Commission register as a white-label domain of account 38905, Gamesys Operations Limited, which holds the active remote casino operating licence 038905-R-319430-022. White-label status means the site trades under another company’s licence: a player dealing with Virgin Games is, in regulatory terms, dealing with Gamesys Operations Limited, and that is the entity that responds to a Commission complaint.
BetVictor
BetVictor is a domain of account 39576, BV Gaming Limited, operating under the remote casino licence 039576-R-319370-028. BetVictor’s longer licence suffix (028) reflects the number of licence variants the account holds; the player-facing reality is a single Commission-licensed brand with a sportsbook and casino under one licence.
Grosvenor Casinos
Grosvenor Casinos is listed on the Gambling Commission register as an active domain of account 57924, Rank Interactive (Gibraltar) Limited, which holds the active remote casino operating licence 057924-R-334666-005. Rank’s online casino sits alongside its high-street Grosvenor estate; the Gibraltar-incorporated Rank Interactive entity is the GB licence holder for the .com domain.
What the comparison actually answers
The page is built around one question: what is an Anjouan casino licence, and what does choosing a site that holds one cost a UK player? The answer falls into three parts. The first is that the Anjouan authorisation exists, is real in its own jurisdiction, and is not a sham — but it is an island-level offshore licence issued by an authority that the Comorian central bank does not recognise, and it sits over a Comorian penal code that prohibits gambling. The second is that it does not authorise taking deposits from players in Great Britain, which is governed by the Gambling Act 2005 and the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014; the operator’s offshore licence is irrelevant to that test. The third is that the player is the one who pays for choosing the offshore option, by losing GAMSTOP enforcement, the Commission’s complaints route, the stake and wagering caps, the financial vulnerability checks and the rest of the licence-condition architecture that the GB-licensed brand is bound by.
The worked example on the bonus cap illustrates the same point in a different register: a 10x cap on wagering, combined with the slot RTP, produces a 40% expected loss on a £100 bonus, and the player who clears the wagering requirement sees that figure come out of their bonus before any payout. An offshore site can offer a higher headline bonus with a higher multiple, and the arithmetic scales — the player’s cost scales with it.
Reading the regulator’s own register
The Gambling Commission’s public register is the only test of whether a brand holds a GB licence, and it is searchable online and downloadable in full as CSV or Excel files. The register records each website against the licence account that runs it, with a status of Active, Inactive or White Label; the 18 September 2026 snapshot held 1065 active and 361 white-label domain entries. A remote casino licence number on the register follows a format where the leading six digits repeat the licence holder’s account number and the “R” marks a remote online licence.
That format is the easiest forgery to spot. An Anjouan licence number looks nothing like a Commission licence number; the Commission number is also linked to a named account holder with a real UK presence. A site that prints a Commission-style number but cannot be found on the register by searching for it is not licensed, and a player who deposits there will not have access to the Commission’s complaints route. The register is the check that takes thirty seconds and saves the whole lifecycle.
Frequently asked questions
What does an Anjouan gambling licence actually authorise?
It authorises the operator to host online gambling from a jurisdiction that does not tax the operator’s gross gaming yield. It does not authorise the operator to take deposits from players in Great Britain — that act is governed by the Gambling Act 2005 and the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014, and only a Gambling Commission licence satisfies those statutes. The Anjouan authorisation is real within its own island jurisdiction and is irrelevant to the GB test.
Are ID checks still carried out before a first deposit at an Anjouan-licensed site?
Sometimes, often not, and never as a licence condition. At a Commission-licensed site name, address and date of birth are verified before the first deposit or any play, and have been since 7 May 2019. An Anjouan-licensed site has no equivalent requirement and may or may not verify, which the player cannot tell until a withdrawal is paused for a source-of-funds review.
Does GAMSTOP self-exclusion apply at an Anjouan-licensed casino?
No. GAMSTOP membership is a mandatory condition of every Commission online licence since 31 March 2020, so a GB-licensed site will refuse to open an account for a self-excluded player. An Anjouan-licensed site is not a member by default and is not required to honour an existing exclusion, which is the practical reason an excluded player should not be looking for offshore sites.
Do the UK’s stake and wagering-requirement caps apply on an Anjouan licence?
No. The £5 / £2 per-game-cycle slot stake limits and the 10x wagering requirement cap (in force since 19 December 2025) are GB-licence conditions, and an Anjouan-licensed site is not bound by them. A higher bonus headline on an offshore site reflects a higher multiple and a higher expected loss, not a more generous offer.
Can a UK player use a UK dispute-resolution service if an Anjouan-licensed site refuses a withdrawal?
The Commission’s ADR routes are open only to disputes with GB-licensed operators. A player with an unresolved complaint against an Anjouan-licensed site has no Commission-route referral and no ADR provider approved for that brand, which is one of the costs the offshore option imposes. The legal routes (chargeback, civil claim) remain, but the regulatory ones do not.
Is an Anjouan licence the same thing as a Gambling Commission licence?
No. The Commission licence is required to take deposits from GB players under the Gambling Act 2005 and the 2014 Act. The Anjouan licence is an island-level offshore authorisation issued by a body the Comorian central bank does not recognise, sitting over a Comorian penal code that prohibits gambling. The two licences govern different markets, and only one of them answers the GB player’s question.
Published by the cardcasinoguide team.
