A gambling regulator is the public body that licenses gambling companies in a country and enforces the rules they have to follow. This gambling regulators list covers the main licensing bodies in more than 30 countries, the law each one works under, and a link to its own website. If you want to know whether a gambling site is licensed where you live, the answer comes from your own country’s regulator, not from the badges in the site’s footer.
Rules current as of 26 September 2026. Gambling law changes often. We review this page every three months and correct it sooner if a reader tells us something has moved.
What a gambling regulator actually does
Regulators are not all the same, but most of them do the same core jobs. Knowing what those jobs are tells you what you can reasonably ask a regulator for.
- Licensing. Deciding which companies may offer gambling, and for which products.
- Rule-setting. Writing the technical and social rules operators must meet, such as deposit limits, age checks and advertising limits.
- Supervision. Auditing operators, testing games and reviewing how they treat customers who show signs of harm.
- Enforcement. Fining operators, attaching conditions to a licence, suspending it or taking it away.
- Public registers. Publishing a searchable list of who is licensed, and often a list of enforcement actions too.
- Blocking illegal sites. Many regulators publish blacklists and ask banks or internet providers to cut off unlicensed operators.
What regulators do not do
- They do not provide treatment or counselling. That is a separate system in almost every country.
- They usually cannot get your money back. Losses on a legal bet are rarely recoverable, even if you were unwell when you placed it.
- They have no power over a site licensed somewhere else. A regulator in your country cannot discipline an operator that never sought its licence.
- Most do not settle individual disputes directly. They look for patterns across many complaints instead.
This last point matters. A regulator is a market supervisor, not a customer service desk. If you are in trouble now, the faster route is a helpline: see our step-by-step guide to getting help.
How to use this gambling regulators list
Checking a licence takes about two minutes and is worth doing before you deposit anything.
- Find the regulator for the country you live in, using the tables below. Where you live matters more than where the company is based.
- Search that regulator’s own register for the company name, not the brand name. One licence often covers several brands, and the licensed company name is usually in the site’s small print.
- Check the licence covers the product you want. Many licences are specific: betting, casino, bingo and lotteries are often licensed separately.
A licence logo in a website footer proves nothing on its own, because an image is trivial to copy. In Great Britain, for example, the authoritative source is the Gambling Commission’s own public register, which lists licensed businesses, personal licences, premises, regulatory actions and public statements. Almost every regulator below runs something similar. If the company is not in the register, the licence is not real, whatever the site says.
Gambling regulators in Europe
Europe has no single gambling regulator. The European Union leaves gambling to each member state, so there are as many regimes as there are countries, and they differ sharply on advertising, deposit limits and self-exclusion.
| Country | Regulator | Main law |
|---|---|---|
| Great Britain | Gambling Commission | Gambling Act 2005 |
| Ireland | Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland (GRAI) | Gambling Regulation Act 2024 |
| Spain | Direccion General de Ordenacion del Juego (DGOJ) | Ley 13/2011 |
| Portugal | Servico de Regulacao e Inspecao de Jogos (SRIJ) | Decreto-Lei 66/2015 |
| France | Autorite Nationale des Jeux (ANJ) | Gambling code, ANJ created 2019-20 |
| Belgium | Gaming Commission | Gambling Act of 7 May 1999 |
| Netherlands | Kansspelautoriteit (Ksa) | Remote Gambling Act (Wet Koa) |
| Germany | Gemeinsame Gluecksspielbehoerde der Laender (GGL) | Gluecksspielstaatsvertrag 2021 |
| Denmark | Spillemyndigheden | Danish gambling acts |
| Sweden | Spelinspektionen | Spellag (2018:1138) |
| Norway | Lottstift | Norwegian gambling act, monopoly model |
| Finland | National Police Board (to 30 June 2027) | Lotteries Act; new Gambling Act from 1 July 2027 |
| Italy | Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli (ADM) | Concession-based; several acts |
| Greece | Hellenic Gaming Commission (HGC) | Independent administrative authority |
| Malta | Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) | Gaming Act (Cap. 583) |
| Switzerland | Gespa (large-scale games) | Federal Act on Gambling |
Great Britain
The Gambling Commission was created by section 20 of the Gambling Act 2005, which simply says there shall be a body corporate known as the Gambling Commission. It regulates most gambling in Great Britain and the National Lottery across the UK, and it licenses both businesses and individuals. Northern Ireland has its own separate arrangements. The Commission is unusual in how much of its supervision is public: fines, licence conditions and the reasoning behind them are published, so you can read what an operator was found to have done wrong.
Ireland
Ireland is the newest regime in Europe. The Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland was established on a statutory footing in March 2025 under the Gambling Regulation Act 2024, and opened for licence applications on 9 February 2026, starting with remote betting, in-person betting and remote betting intermediary licences. Because the licensing rounds are still rolling out, an Irish operator may be lawfully trading under transitional arrangements rather than a new GRAI licence. If you are in Ireland and unsure, check the GRAI site rather than assuming.
Germany
Germany regulated online gambling late and centralised it slowly. The Gemeinsame Gluecksspielbehoerde der Laender (GGL), based in Halle, is a joint authority that the German states created under the Gluecksspielstaatsvertrag 2021 to license and supervise cross-state online gambling, fight unlicensed operators and their advertising, and fund research. Land-based casinos and gaming halls remain a state matter, so a German player deals with two layers of regulation depending on where they play.
The Netherlands
The Kansspelautoriteit is an independent administrative body supervising gambling in the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands; political responsibility for gambling policy sits with the Ministry of Justice and Security. The Remote Gambling Act (Wet Koa) came into force on 1 April 2021, with the licensed market opening on 1 October 2021. The Dutch self-exclusion register is CRUKS, the Centraal Register Uitsluiting Kansspelen, at cruksregister.nl. Be careful with search results here: commercial lookalike sites exist, and the register only has one official address.
Sweden, Denmark and Norway
Sweden licenses a competitive market under the Spellag (2018:1138), supervised by Spelinspektionen, which also requires licensees to take active steps to prevent excessive gambling. Denmark’s Spillemyndigheden runs a similar licensed market and operates ROFUS, which it describes plainly as its own self-exclusion register. Norway is different: it keeps a monopoly model, with Lottstift supervising gambling alongside foundations and volunteer lotteries. In a monopoly country there is no list of licensed private operators to check, because there are none.
Finland: a regulator that is about to change
Finland is mid-reform, so anything you read about it may be out of date. Right now the National Police Board supervises gambling under the Lotteries Act, which gives Veikkaus Oy the exclusive right to organise it. From 1 July 2027 a new Gambling Act takes effect, a new supervisory agency takes over licensing and supervision, and betting and some online casino games open to licensed competition. The Ministry of the Interior confirms that licence applications opened on 1 March 2026 while Veikkaus keeps its monopoly until the new system starts, and retains exclusive rights to money lotteries, pools and physical slot machines and casino games afterwards.
Spain and Portugal
Spain’s Direccion General de Ordenacion del Juego regulates state-level gambling under Ley 13/2011, de 27 de mayo, de regulacion del juego, and sits within the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and the 2030 Agenda. Spain splits responsibility: online and cross-regional gambling is national, while land-based casinos, bingo halls and machines are licensed by the autonomous communities, each with its own register. Portugal’s regulator is the Servico de Regulacao e Inspecao de Jogos, part of Turismo de Portugal, working under Decreto-Lei 66/2015, which approved the country’s legal framework for online games and betting.
Malta, and why so many sites mention it
The Malta Gaming Authority licenses under the Gaming Act (Cap. 583) and is the licensing home of a large share of Europe’s online gambling companies. It publishes a licensee register, an enforcement register and a list of unauthorised URLs, and offers a self-barring route for players. A Malta licence is a real licence with real obligations. What it is not is a substitute for a licence in your own country: if your national regulator has not licensed the operator, your national rules, including your national self-exclusion scheme, generally do not apply to it.
Switzerland
Switzerland splits gambling supervision between a federal casino regulator and Gespa, the intercantonal authority in Bern that supervises large-scale games such as lotteries, sports betting and skill games under the Federal Act on Gambling. Only Swiss-licensed operators may offer online gambling to Swiss residents, and other sites are blocked.
North America
North America has no national gambling regulator on either side of the border. In both countries the licensing body is the state or province, which is why advice written for one place is often wrong in the next.
United States
There is no federal gambling regulator for commercial casinos or sports betting. Each state that permits gambling has its own body, and each keeps its own rules, its own register and its own self-exclusion list. Nevada is supervised by the Nevada Gaming Control Board and the Nevada Gaming Commission, which work together through divisions covering enforcement, investigations, audit, tax and licensing, and technology. Michigan’s Michigan Gaming Control Board regulates Detroit commercial casinos, internet gaming and online sports betting, horse racing and fantasy contests. New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement sits inside the state Office of the Attorney General and shares oversight with the Casino Control Commission. Tribal gaming is a separate legal track again, governed by federal Indian gaming law and tribal regulators rather than by state boards.
The practical consequence for players is that a US self-exclusion is normally state-specific and product-specific. We cover that in detail in our global self-exclusion guide.
Canada
Canadian gambling is provincial. Ontario is the clearest example of a two-body model: the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario regulates alcohol, lottery and gaming, cannabis retail and horse racing, and registers operators and standards, while iGaming Ontario conducts and manages the commercial online market as a separate entity. Other provinces run provincial lottery corporations that both operate and, in effect, control access to gambling, so the regulator and the operator can be uncomfortably close.
Asia-Pacific and Oceania
| Country | Regulator | Main law |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | ACMA (online), plus state and territory regulators | Interactive Gambling Act 2001 |
| New Zealand | Department of Internal Affairs | Gambling Act; Online Casino Gambling Act 2026 |
| Singapore | Gambling Regulatory Authority (GRA) | Gambling Regulatory Authority Act 2022; Gambling Control Act 2022; Casino Control Act 2006 |
| Philippines | PAGCOR | Operator and regulator in one body |
Australia
Australia divides the job. The Australian Communications and Media Authority enforces the Interactive Gambling Act 2001, which prohibits unlicensed interactive gambling services being offered to people in Australia, bans advertising of prohibited services, and restricts credit and digital currency for wagering. Part 7B of that Act created the national self-exclusion register, which operates as BetStop. Registering is free and obliges every licensed Australian online and phone gambling provider to block you from betting, stop you opening new accounts and stop marketing to you. Pokies in pubs, clubs and casinos are licensed by each state and territory instead, so venue exclusion is a separate process from BetStop.
New Zealand
Gambling in New Zealand is regulated by the Department of Internal Affairs, covering casino and non-casino gambling, gaming machines, lotteries and gambling in pubs and clubs, with the stated aims of community benefit and harm minimisation. Online casino gambling is now regulated separately under the Online Casino Gambling Act 2026, and the department has begun implementing that licensing regime. Anyone reading older guidance about New Zealand online casinos should treat it as out of date.
Latin America and Africa
Brazil
Brazil went from an unregulated grey market to a licensed one very quickly. Fixed-odds betting is governed by Lei 14.790 of 2023, and the regulator is the Secretaria de Premios e Apostas (SPA) inside the Ministry of Finance, which authorises operators and publishes the rules they must follow. Because the licensed market is new, any Brazilian statistics you see from before 2025 describe a pre-regulation baseline, not the market as it stands now.
South Africa
South Africa uses a national oversight body with provincial licensing. The National Gambling Board oversees regulation of the industry nationally, while provincial boards such as the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo bodies license and enforce locally. The National Responsible Gambling Programme runs a helpline on 0800 006 008, which the National Gambling Board publishes on its own site.
Offshore licences, and what they are worth
Some sites advertise a licence from a small jurisdiction that licenses for export, historically Curacao being the best known. Others display a logo from a body that licenses nothing at all. The reason this matters is not snobbery about paperwork. It is that consumer protection is only as strong as the regulator behind it.
With an operator licensed only offshore, you are likely to find that your national deposit limit rules do not apply, your national self-exclusion register does not reach it, there is no independent dispute service with teeth, and no regulator with an interest in your case. Sites marketed as a way around a national self-exclusion scheme are marketed at people who have already decided they need to stop. We do not list or link them, and the reason is simple: the people searching for them are usually the people most likely to be hurt by them. If a block has stopped working for you, the more useful next step is layering protections, as set out in our guide to responsible gambling tools.
How to complain, and what to expect
The usual order is: complain to the operator first, in writing; then escalate to whatever independent dispute resolution body the operator names; then tell the regulator. Telling the regulator is worth doing even when it cannot resolve your individual case, because enforcement is built from patterns. A single complaint about a missed sign of harm looks like bad luck. Two hundred of them look like a licence condition breach.
Be realistic about outcomes. Regulators fine operators; they rarely compensate players. If your complaint is that an operator let you keep gambling when it should have intervened, keep records: account statements, deposit history, any messages where you told the operator you had a problem. Those records are what an investigation runs on.
If gambling is causing you harm
A regulator is the wrong door to knock on for help. Support is free and confidential in most countries, and you do not need a diagnosis to use it. Our global helpline directory lists numbers we check regularly against the operators’ own sites, and our explainer on what problem gambling means covers the language regulators and clinicians use, and why they are not the same.
Background on the ideas behind these rules is in our page on what responsible gambling means, and on the evidence in global gambling harm data. How we are funded and why we take no operator money is set out in our funding and independence statement. If you find an error on this page, please tell us: see our corrections policy.
Last reviewed: 26 September 2026. Sources checked on this date.