Bitcoin Forum

Hi, quick question I came up with today, I was curious about... Do you (the owner, whomever) need any license(s) to "legally" operate an Online Crypto Casino (Slots, BlackJack, etc...)? Are you in risk if you don't have them (if you need them)? Like if I made a website tomorrow, could I legally run/operate it and accept deposits?

Whether you need a licence depends on the country you are in and who you want to serve. Most countries internationally accept remote gambling while others don't but I'm not sure they can do much about it.

You might also have to check with the person who hosts your server to check if they are happy with your running a casino through their services...

You should do a legal process before you start your online crypto casino. Don't risk your business in just a moment. All business and money related must undergo a legal and license process. If you ignore this process, all of your hardwork will be nothing and useless. Your mind will be stress free if you have license and you are not be frightened to do a work such as online casino. Goodluck!

Not sure, almost all steem based casinos don't have gambling license. Anyway, if you are looking to get license for your site, then I guess BVI and Curaçao is friendly territory, eosbet is registered under Curaçao laws.

You should state what country you are in and you should get a license from the country you operate it, or where it is coming from, not because you are online-based, doesn't mean you will not get a license to operate, this is good so they know where you contact you and you will gain trust from bettors.

First of all you are running a business and by law every business should have a license. Especially the type of businesses that requires a certain user to at least be in the legal age to be able to use your business's services.

As I have known in most part of the world businesses that involves "sexuality","alcohol","gambling","smoking" undergoes a very long process in getting their licenses to ensure that a certain user or consumer are being protected by the law. To simply answer your question "yes it is a must"

I can't tell you that it is a must since not every country are strict about that, may we know what country you are in OP? Here's a piece of advice though I am not that of a gambler in nature, in order to get you more players on your gambling casino, you should get one because that will ensure your bettors are in good hands that the casino is operating legally.

I think having a license is one thing that we need to have, especially if we running a gambling website in the territory of the country which allows gambling in their country. But I don't know the truth because I don't have a gambling site, maybe you can ask with the owner of the recommended gambling site on here, so you know the answer. I think that will be related to where the gambling site is hosted so maybe you can ask with the hosting provider services too to get the right answer.

Depends which areas you are planning to offer gambling services. Whether you plan to block areas that have laws against such activity.


If you need them to operate in a country then you obviously are at risk to not have one, yes.


Yep. Anyone can build one, getting customers and retaining customers is the tricky part.  ;)

I believe in trust and if any gambling sites has trust and fairness I don't care if there are legal or not.we don't need license for cryptocurrency gambling sites and as such license is not what we concern ourselves with but trust.

You may operate but attracting deposits would be a big problem. Even in crypto space now a days, people look for registered companies so that they may chase down the owners on the occurrence of sudden shutdown of a  business. That must be a good practice for staying/beginning safer.

You cannot think about operating a fiat casino but now in crypto world too people start looking for possible things for ensuring their safer environments.

^ That is professionally way if you run and operate a gambling site with the complete license to operate. The legitimacy was attracting people to deposit and trust gambling companies if it is fully registered and that should have a license to operate. It would be better if your business is in a legal way and not hiding to your costumers. So, my answer is YES.

Yes, you need one.
Even if it's from Curaçao, the license will serve as a bragging right or in other words to give players some peace of mind.

It's similar to any other business when you need to create a legal entity and some permit, mainly to show that you are serious about your business, not some kind of hobby projects.

You are correct at some point when you talk about the safety of bettors who must have complete information about the owner to keep themselves safe but that doesn't mean that owners can't launch a casino. They can start without a license or giving any information about them but it should be a P2P gambling site and they will work as escrow 'where the only condition remains that they don't cheat'. OneHash is the best example for this. How can a decentralized gambling website paying automatically to their customers on each win need to expose about the owners of that business?

I think most bitcoiners would be against requiring a license to run a business.  People should be free to do what they want and it is on the business owner to build up their reputation and provide their customers with a good service.

It all depends on your local law mate! If your local law explicitly say that you require government approval to carry out such kind of businesses, then you would require license. I would recommend you to get a license before you start operating a crypto casino and get yourself acquainted with the IAGR (International Association of Gambling Regulators) norms. We certainly don't need crap casinos to run in the market!

It depends mostly on the country where the casino is licensed but most of the major crypto are regulated,the one who have ton of traffic they can't risk to close business by not following some simple rules and procedures.We have the trusted casinos in the Gambling. section.No one wants to play in a casino operated by anyone.

Just like all people here all things needs to be done legally, And because normally for law-abiding citizens they will surely obey the law and just to be safe in not getting arrested by the authority, I really think that a license is a must and it will surely depend on your country if they are OK with online casino, Because mostly some online casino's is ban in certain countries and the government would surely want to take legal actions when it comes to Bitcoin gambling.

It won't be long til we see user game-protect coming to reply here declaring the casinos you said are operating illegally. I don't play much of casinos though so I don't know much about licenses but as long as your casino allow people to play and you pay them fairly, I guess you can operate. It doesn't matter when you will suddenly tick and turned scam. Any of the license casinos can still be a scam.

lol yeah thats what im also thinking . user game protect loves to troll and complain about the legality of the casinos .

thats not enough i think because if we saw offline casinos they always have a certificate because if not they will be questioned by authorities  . same as online , some casinos have a certificate that can be found on their bottom page  . certificate can also make them attractive because they will look more trusted .

but its hard for them turned into scam because they can easily be track .

I'm sure that you didn't even know that some of famous gambling sites nowadays doesn't have license.Its actually true but people do still trust to play into that place.

When it comes to license,this would vary on countries jurisdiction but I would say that having license does really give out some sort of confidence on gamblers side.

As far as I know, it needs to have license on the country they are operating.  Though several casinos do not bother to get one since they think that they can operate freely without it and that authority will not notice or come after them but there are lots of online casino in my country that were shutdown because they do not comply with the government regulation and that, without license, they are operating illegaly.

Some gamblers might not care or bother to check while some don't fail to check for it.
The important things is that getting a licence for your online can prevent à lot of things. Even when the country you are staying in don't request for it, having it can attribute good conduct, honesty and integrity. It assures that users funds are in the right hand, and not someone who will make away with funds.
If you intend to get it, know that this licence varies according to countries and from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

That's right and I support the same thing, but if OP still wants to hear what he had in mind i.e.; to go the license way then I have something for everyone to give a read:

https://www.softswiss.com/licensing/

A good page to read out and decide where to start their online casino if they want to go for a license if that is their priority.

They don't have a license but people trust these gambling sites because they have established their business among gamblers, but soon they will get caught if authorities traced where they are operating their server and their location, it's better to have one that to get ruin when you already established your business.

For me, it much better to get a license on operating an online casino, especially if your country is demanding for a license, it will make your site very trusted and legal. Also, gambler wants to ensure that their money is safe, you are trusted and especially your not a scam, or if things become unfair, they can report your site and more actions because you are registered.   :)

Gambling business needs to be reputable because we are talking huge amount of money here,ofcourse you can just start to operate your site tomorrow but the question is would there be costumers or players that will trust your site?

Let’s not go far just keep the question to yourself,will you play or deposit money in that kind of site ?

It can be use as an assurance for gamblers whose going to use your site, as there's registrations from the country who's catering your services, if the gamblers seen that the site have this legal permits they will start using it knowing that the government can help them just in case there's issue with their gambling activities, following the rules will also give good reputations so its better to have one.

Online gambling casinos are digital companies like every other else who offers products through the internet.
Having said that, they need a license to operate and they should have physical offices in a country somewhere.

"Legally" is a broad term over here. Legality depends on the where you live and who you are serving. The laws of your countries only applies towards you. Your country laws does not have affect on anyone else not living on that country. Most people are not allowed to play on casinos that are not licensed. Again, most countries make it illegal to play on online casino that is not regulated by them. In other words, if you get a license, you will be able to serve people who lives in a country that recognizes the licence. On other hand, it will be illegal to play on casinos by people who lives in a country where that license is not recognized.

Some gamblers are did not check the legality of online casino, they always look at first the concept of the website and the promos that they may grab for a better profit. Legally, that must be better to have licensed in your gambling company in online. People were always looking for the owner or the operators of the gambling company. If you don't have a license I think it takes more time before you can build trust to the gamblers and need massive promotion for your brand name.

Online casino should comply with the legal rules of the respective country where it is registered. As online casinos were completely used through internet connectivity it can be registered on countries that legally provide support through services that are available. When it comes to cryptocurrency acceptance this needs to comply next set of rules from the government. As of now the better place to get it registered seems to be Estonia.

I a strict government of a specific country, licence is really needed in order to run a Casino. But for an online casino, I don't know how strict and tight are they for that matters, because if an online gambling is using cryptocurrency it won't really be associated to fiat. Every transactions is encrypted and with separation to physical money gambling. That's my idea all about and I do look for other people's opinion to have clearer understanding about it.

Funny but its true  . not just gambler but people nowadays are more concerned on the sites design and other features more than the legality and security but you can easily tell if the site is shady by basing thru its design  .  shady and scammy sites oftenly have a poorly built design  .

Massive promotion is enough to get attention and trust even without a license  . gamblers tend to trust sites that are now popular like for example when it was advertise on this site via campaigns .

But it would be more self-satisfying on the part of the owner of online casino if it has its own license to operate so that gamblers will find it legit and so they can  put their trust on it easily. Maybe some countries do not require license for online casinos but i still believe majority of them still requite for legit and legal purposes.

In general, if you are talking about receiving funds for gambling, you could do it. The ending is that whether you are legitimate or not, even if you let users withdraw, you could be called illegitimate just because of the lack of license to run a casino. Imagine how much people could see your website and see that you have no license to show? Or even verification. I think Reputation is all you need to have a great image here, or even in other forums. Once that's established, you would be able to invite users and play at your site.

For me, as a gambler from time to time, I don't check for the license of the site or even the provably fair. It's because I know the reputation of the casino website and doesn't need to be checked. I trusted it by the image and reputation of it. Don't be like me, and I am somehow easy to believe in people but still skeptical.

Yeah true, it depends on your country rules,  if in your country it requires a license so you have to get it so that your website is not blocked by the government. whereas for countries that still ban gambling, I don't think you will need it, because they will certainly reject your proposal for your license. moreover the license is only for formalities so that your site looks safe for players? so even without a license gambling sites can still operate

Reputation is more important compared to license for typical bettors like us.
I like to play in a non license casino too because they don't require KYC, they served the real purpose of crypto casino which is to stay anonymous and that's more fun even if we can call it a risky thing for us gamblers but we know that we can manage to loss that we gamble.

I think that's already a give away since we hang out in the gambling discussion. I didn't say I like to play in a non-licensed casino, it's that I don't check it anymore. I'm just worried the integrity of it but I don't like to participate in KYC too, but if it is needed and I have a large balance on the casino, I would probably do it and with a condition where I know they are a trusted site that has a good reputation.

I don't know why you are saying because the first part you said you like to play in a non-licensed casino because they have no KYC. Then you said you want to stay anonymous because it's fun (getting weird). Then I don't know how it is connected to losing while you gamble. KYC doesn't improve your chances to win. Lol.

I think experienced players do not really judge the reputation of a site by the license, players prefer to play on familiar sites even though its not licensed as long as it have testimonies from players that have played and paid. The only reason a new site might compulsorily need license is when they need investors to partner with, because no investor would like to commit money in an unlicensed site.

Again, I understand licensing a site comes with many pros and cons and one of it includes compulsory KYC regulation, this is one of the reasons why most players no longer play on licensed site but would rather choose a trusted  unlicensed casino site over a reputable but licensed and KYC demanding casino site

You must comply with SEC and other similar government organizations and secure a license before you can operate one. Technically, it falls under a business so you must secure a business permit as well, aside from operating license to run a gambling site--and it also varies on what country do you plan to establish your base of operation. There are some countries in which online gambling is frowned upon and is banned, so it's a no-brainer to not start there and move somewhere else. For clarity and thorough explanation on the said matter, why not visit your local government authorities and see what things are needed to be done before you start your venture?

Doesn't having a license establish a reputation?  Having the legalities to operates means it won't shutdown due to illegal operation.  How can be a non-license casino reputable when anytime, it can be shutdown by the government.  It is another kind of business just like what dothebeats stated, so definitely it should operate with proper documentation for the player's security and of course the government benefits.

Yeah that's right, here in my location even online casinos need to get permit to operate came from the government( business permit where the office or gambling site location) they need to get secured where the city's or municipalities the under jurisdiction.

You need a license, of course, to avoid getting taken down, once your site becomes popular attract high rollers and you are making a good income, the country you are in might require those who operate an online casino for a license or else they will request your host to take it down or even prosecute you, to avoid those hustles check the guidelines where you are located.

The truth is nobody wants to gamble on a site with KYC regulation even though it is licensed and at the same time, 80% of gamblers would not gamble on a site that is not licensed for trust issues. I believe there are still licensed site that do not follow this KYC policy and if it’s now a compulsory thing for every gambling site to comply in other to be regulated, then I suggest it should be ignored because the number of gamblers that are not willing to play on a KYC site a more.

I believe there a many ways to convince users of being reputable aside License, if KYC is compulsory to make a site licensed and if I were to be an operator, I would rather leave it without licensed and work on promoting the site to the public and also rendering standard services that would keep the players coming.

If you want legality and you don't want to get questioned by authorities in your area or location it's better to check if you need a license on where your server is located, there's a possibility that it will be shut down, and you don't want to happen after spending thousands of dollars in your operational cost.