Websites Falsely Claiming an MGA License

A website showing the MGA logo and a license number in its footer is not proof of anything. Fake license claims are one of the most common tricks in online gambling, and the MGA itself spends a surprising amount of effort publicly naming sites that pretend to hold its licenses. This page explains how those notices work, what they say, how to check a claim yourself, and what other regulators such as PAGCOR are doing about the same problem. For the wider picture of cloned seals and invented license numbers, see fake gambling license claims.

How the MGA publishes unauthorized URL notices

The MGA's main tool against fake license claims is a public notice, published on its own website, titled "The MGA publishes notice on multiple unauthorized URLs." Each notice lists a batch of web addresses and states two things plainly: the MGA has no connection whatsoever with those URLs, and any claim by them to hold a Maltese gaming license is false and misleading.

The pattern tells you something useful: fake MGA claims are not rare one-offs. They appear often enough that the regulator publishes a fresh batch roughly every month or two, and the number of addresses in each batch has been climbing through 2026.

The notices serve two audiences at once. They warn players who might be checking a site before they deposit, and they help payment providers, affiliates and search engines that reference the MGA's declarations. If you land on a site and want to know whether the MGA has already disowned it, searching the site's address together with "MGA unauthorized URL" is a quick first check.

What the notices actually say about false license claims

The wording matters. The MGA does not say these sites once held a license and lost it. It says it has no connection with them at all, and that their claims to hold a Maltese license are false and misleading. In other words, the sites are displaying something they never had.

This is worth distinguishing from a suspended or revoked license, which is a different situation involving a real former licensee. If that distinction matters to you, see what happens when a gambling license is suspended or revoked.

The reason fake claims work is that most players never check them. A footer logo, a license number in a plausible format, and a professional-looking site are usually enough to pass. Operators that genuinely hold licenses describe what the real thing looks like: licensed casinos display the registration number or logo of the licensing body in the website footer, in forms such as "Licensed by PAGCOR", "Regulated by Curacao eGaming" or "Under Malta Gaming Authority (MGA)"⁶. A fake site simply copies that convention.

One real example of how brazen the claims can get: a platform called Oubao Entertainment has claimed to hold legal licenses from both the Malta MGA in Europe and the Philippine government through PAGCOR⁷. Claiming two well-known regulators at once is a common credibility play, and each regulator keeps its own public register of licensed operators where such claims can be checked.

How to check a license on the MGA's official register

The MGA maintains a public register you can search at verify.mga.org.mt. This is the single most important step, and it takes a couple of minutes.

Know the format first. MGA license numbers come in more than one form: they look like MGA/B2C/XXX/YYYY or MGA/CRP/XXX/YYYY, where the middle section is a number and the final part is a year⁸. For example, a genuine operator's terms may state "Betfair International Plc is licensed and regulated by the Malta Gaming Authority, Malta. No: MGA/CRP/131/2006"², and another operator publishes its license as MGA/B2C/748/2019⁸. Both fit the family of MGA number formats. A number that fits no known MGA format at all is a strong sign of a fake.

Search the register. Enter the registration number, the brand name or even the site's IP address into the register's search box. If the details match, the license is real; if the search returns no data, the license is likely fake or borrowed from another operator⁶. One operator describes doing exactly this: entering a license code into the search field on verify.mga.org.mt and confirming it as valid⁹.

Match the domain, not just the company. The UK Gambling Commission gives the same advice for its own register, and it applies everywhere: check whether the details of the license, including the licensed activities and the website domain names, match what the public register shows¹⁰. A common trick is to display a real license number belonging to a different company or a different website. The register entry must cover the exact domain you are playing on.

Click the logo. A genuine license logo should link through to the issuer's real domain. Press guidance on fake license logos is blunt on this point: click the logo and check that the link leads to the issuing body's actual domain; captured images or forged URLs mean the site should be avoided¹¹. Static logos that look convincing but do not click through to a live register are a hallmark of rogue casinos¹².

For a fuller walkthrough, see how to check a Malta Gaming Authority license, and for license numbers in general, how to read a gambling license number.

Other regulators that warn against fake claims: PAGCOR's illegal offshore gaming warning

The MGA is not the only regulator whose name gets stolen. PAGCOR, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation, faces the same problem and has responded in a similar way.

PAGCOR has urged the public to check its list of licensees on the PAGCOR website before accessing offshore gaming sites¹³. It also runs the PAGCOR Guarantee page, an online verification facility with a regularly updated list of licensed internet gaming platforms, where you can check whether an online gaming provider is licensed or not¹⁴.

PAGCOR's answer to verification is the PAGCOR Guarantee page, an online verification facility that lets the public check whether an online gaming provider is licensed or not¹⁵. The page features a regularly updated list of licensed internet gaming platforms under PAGCOR's oversight¹⁶. Licensed Philippine platforms are also expected to show tell-tale signs: PAGCOR requires licensed platforms to publicly display their registration numbers so players can verify validity directly on its website⁶, and legitimate PAGCOR gaming websites show PAGCOR infographics or a responsible-gaming video clip during log-in¹³. Licensed E-Games and E-Bingo sites also give players a complaints mechanism against operators¹³.

The principle is identical to the MGA's: the regulator's own list is the only authority. A site saying "PAGCOR-licensed" or "MGA-licensed" is making a claim; the register is the fact. In the Philippines, only platforms with a PAGCOR license may operate legally¹⁷, so the check matters doubly there. For the wider landscape of which regulators matter in Asia, see gambling regulators and licenses in Asia.

What happens after a site is declared unauthorized

Being named in an MGA notice does not, by itself, switch a website off. The site often keeps running, keeps displaying the fake logo, and keeps taking deposits. What changes is that there is now an official public record that the claim is false, which players, payment providers and search engines can all act on.

The practical consequence for you is about protection. If a site is unlicensed, there is no regulator to turn to if a withdrawal stalls or an account is frozen; the MGA can only act on operators it licenses¹⁸. That is the real cost of a fake license claim: not that the games are necessarily rigged, but that when something goes wrong, you have no complaints channel, no dispute resolution and no leverage.

Some jurisdictions go further and block access outright. Singapore's Gambling Regulatory Authority uses website blocking and payment transaction blocking, with major banks including DBS, UOB and OCBC mandated to block transactions to known gambling domains¹⁹. Betfair, for instance, is treated as an unlicensed gambling service provider in Singapore²⁰. So depending on where you are, a site falsely claiming an MGA license may be unreachable, or reachable but entirely on your own risk.

For more on what you expose yourself to, see risks of playing on unlicensed sites, and for the official channels, how to complain to a gambling regulator and specifically how to complain to the Malta Gaming Authority.

Checking a claim in practice: a five-minute routine

Here is a routine you can run before your first deposit on any site claiming an MGA license.

1. Read the footer. Find the license claim, the number and the logo. Note whether the registered company name matches the brand name; a mismatch is a known sign of a fake⁶.
2. Check the number format. It should fit a known MGA format such as MGA/B2C/XXX/YYYY or MGA/CRP/XXX/YYYY⁸. A garbled or wrong-format number ends the check right there.
3. Search verify.mga.org.mt by number, brand name or IP address. No result means the license is fake or borrowed⁶.
4. Click the logo. It should lead to the MGA's real domain, not a captured image or a forged URL¹¹.
5. Read the address itself. Scammers insert a brand name on the left side of the address, which they control; read the address from right to left starting at the last dot, because the top-level domain on the right is the part that identifies the real owner²¹. Lookalike domains, such as swapping a real government domain for something like "toto-macau.vip", are a standard trick²².

A few extra red flags are worth knowing.

If the check fails, the recommended course is simple: stop depositing, screenshot every potential false claim including license numbers, regulator logos and claimed operator details, report it to the regulator through its public complaint channel, and move on to a verified site¹². The screenshots matter, because a regulator can only act on what it can see.

One last perspective check. A foreign license, even a genuine one, does not make an offshore site a legal local operator in your country; in Malaysia, for example, offshore sites advertise freely to local users, but a foreign license does not change their local legal status²³. Verifying an MGA license tells you the operator answered to a serious regulator; it does not tell you the site is lawful where you live. For that half of the question, see your country page, such as can I gamble in Malaysia or can I gamble in the Philippines.