How to Check a Licence in the UK Gambling Commission Public Register

Check before you deposit: the two-step license check

The Gambling Commission's own player guidance is blunt about the first thing to do before you transfer money into a gambling account: check that the gambling business holds a British Gambling Commission license¹. That is the whole point of the register. It is not a marketing page. It is the list of who is actually allowed to take bets from customers in Great Britain, and it is public.

The check takes about two minutes and has two steps.

Step one: find the license details on the site. Scroll to the footer. A licensed operator is expected to display the registration number or the logo of the licensing body there, in the form of something like "Licensed by PAGCOR", "Regulated by Curacao eGaming" or "Under Malta Gaming Authority (MGA)"⁶. For a UK license you are looking for a company name and an account number. Real examples from operator terms pages:

Step two: match it against the register. Take that number and the company name to the Commission's public register and look them up. The guidance is specific about what to compare: check if the details of the license, including the activities it covers and the website domain names, match the public register¹. That last part matters more than most people realize. A license is issued to a company for named domains. If the site you are on is not one of the domains listed against that license, the number in the footer is not doing the work you think it is.

So the three things to line up are:

• The license or account number
• The name of the licensed company
• The website domain the license covers

All three, or it is not a match.

What the register entry actually shows you

People often expect the register to be a simple yes or no. It is more useful than that, and also narrower.

What you get is the licensed entity, the account number, the activities the license permits, and the domain names attached to it¹. That is the practical core. If a site's footer says "account number 39225" and the register shows that number belongs to WHG (International) Limited covering a specific list of domains, you now know two things: the number is real, and you know which company is answerable for the site.

That second point is the one players skip. The company named on the license is the company the regulator can act against. If you have a dispute, that is who you are dealing with, not the brand name in the logo.

A UK license also carries obligations that show up in your day-to-day experience of the site. Operators confirm your age and identity before you can withdraw, because UK Gambling Commission rules require it². That is why a UK-licensed site will ask for documents before your first cashout rather than after. It is also why the same operator may run a different, lighter process on its non-UK domains.

One more thing worth knowing: the register is not the only public list a regulator keeps. Some regulators publish registers with a different shape. Hong Kong's Amusement Game Centres register, for example, records the license number, name, address and telephone number of each center or premises⁷. Singapore's National Council on Problem Gambling lets you check exclusion status and visit limit status online through its e-Services⁸. Different country, different list, same principle: the regulator's own record is the source, not the site's footer.

Unauthorized URLs: how regulators flag fake sites

Regulators do not only list who is licensed. They also publish who is not, and this is where the UK register has a limit that catches people out.

The UK Gambling Commission's register is a list of its own licensees. It does not list every unlicensed site in the world, and it does not name sites that falsely claim a UK license in the way some other regulators do. For that kind of notice you need to look at the regulator being claimed.

The Malta Gaming Authority is the clearest example. It publishes notices on multiple unauthorized URLs, declaring it has no connection with the listed websites and that any claimed Maltese licenses from them are false and misleading. It did this for seven sites in early August 2026, eleven more later that month, and twelve more in September 2026. That is a running list, updated as new fakes appear.

This matters for anyone in Asia because MGA and Curacao claims are common on sites aimed at this region. Independent guides to offshore casinos serving Vietnamese players, for instance, group the UK Gambling Commission alongside the Curacao and Gibraltar Gaming Commissions and the Malta Gaming Authority as the regulators worth checking⁹. If a site claims one of those, the check is the same two-step process, just against a different register.

There is a second layer of fakery that no register catches on its own: the URL itself. Scam sites clone a brand and put it on a domain the brand does not own. One operator's own guidance on avoiding fake sites describes the method plainly: read the address from right to left, starting from the last dot, because scammers insert the brand name on the left side they control, and the top-level domain on the right is what actually matters¹⁰. A familiar brand name sitting to the left of a dot tells you nothing. The part after the last dot tells you where you really are.

Some sites also carry third-party accreditation marks. Sites with the RG Check accreditation mark have pre-commitment features designed to protect you from excessive risk¹¹. Those marks are worth something, but they are not licenses, and they do not replace the register check.

What a license check does not tell you

A clean register match tells you the operator is licensed by the UK Gambling Commission. It does not tell you the following, and each of these has caught out players in Asia.

It does not mean the site is legal where you are. A UK license covers customers in Great Britain and Northern Ireland⁵. Betfair International Plc, the entity serving everyone else, is licensed and regulated by the Malta Gaming Authority under number MGA/CRP/131/2006, and that license explicitly covers customers residing anywhere other than the UK, Australia or New Zealand¹². Same brand, two entities, two regulators, two sets of rules. Which one applies to you depends on where you are, not on which site you typed in.

It does not mean the site is licensed in your country. Betfair is described as an unlicensed gambling service provider in Singapore¹³. 888sport is licensed and regulated in Great Britain by the Gambling Commission¹⁴. Both statements are true at once. Holding a license somewhere is not the same as being regulated where you live, and the protections you can actually use are the ones of the place you are gambling from.

It does not tell you what your local rules allow. In Singapore, legalized gambling means social gambling, betting with Singapore Pools, casino gambling at Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa, and jackpot gambling in private clubs¹⁵. Online gambling has been banned there since 2014, and players caught can face a fine of up to $5,000 or a 6-month prison sentence¹⁶. In Hong Kong, casino-style gambling is generally not legal, including land-based casinos, online casino games and live dealer casinos¹⁷, and the legal options run through the Hong Kong Jockey Club: horse racing betting, football betting and the Mark Six lottery¹⁷. The minimum age for gambling in Hong Kong is 18, and under-18s may not gamble¹⁸. None of that changes because a site holds a UK license.

It does not tell you the operator will treat you well. A license is a permission to operate, not a guarantee about payouts, bonus terms or how a complaint will go. What it does give you is a route: the regulator can act against the licensee, and the licensee is the company named on the register, not the brand on the homepage.

It does not cover the whole group. WHG (International) Limited holds Gibraltar licenses numbered 034 and 042 for customers in Great Britain, Northern Ireland, Jersey and Gibraltar⁴. A group can hold several licenses in several places, and the site you are on may sit under one you have not checked. Match the entity, not the brand.

If the details do not match

If the number, the company name or the domain does not line up with the register, treat it as a stop sign. Do not deposit while you are still checking. The mismatch is the finding.

The most common mismatches, and what they usually mean:

• The number exists but belongs to another company. The site is borrowing a group license it is not covered by. The register will show you whose number it really is¹.
• The number is in the wrong format. Real license numbers follow a pattern. MGA licenses, for instance, look like MGA/B2C/XXX/YYYY, and an incorrect format is a sign of a fake number¹⁹. The same logic applies to UK account numbers, which are short and specific.
• The domain is not listed. The license is real but does not cover the site you are on¹.
• The footer shows a logo with no number. A logo alone is not a license. You need the number and the company name to check anything⁶.

If you have already deposited and something is wrong, the practical move is to stop depositing, gather what the site told you about its license, and take it to the regulator whose name was used. If the claim was a UK license, that is the Gambling Commission. If it was an MGA claim, the Malta Gaming Authority publishes exactly these notices, and a site appearing on one has already been flagged.

For anyone who wants the wider picture of which regulator licenses what across the region, the regulators and licenses guide covers the ground, and the public gambling license registers page lists where each regulator publishes its licensees. If you are checking a specific claim, how to check a gambling license walks through the same two-step method for other regulators, and fake gambling license claims deals with cloned seals and invented numbers. For the UK regulator itself, the UK Gambling Commission and what its license means for players in Asia explains what the license does and does not cover.