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It’s been a while since I dropped any thoughts or questions here, I tend to get curious about how everything works in the casino and gambling space. So today is the day for another one, and hopefully the community can help clear things up.

Well, recently I discovered that some casinos I already know (not gonna share names for obvious reasons) are operating under unofficial licenses or some with no license at all, while still somehow offering full slots pack from providers like Pragmatic, Hacksaw, and others that supposedly require licensed operators…

Am I missing something here? Is there some loopholes they’re using?
And more importantly; how safe is it to actually trust those casinos? Even if the games look the same, what guarantees that they r not rigged, manipulated from the original ones.

Would like to hear what you guys know or have seen around this topic, and are you still interested to play in such casinos? Personally I never had a chance to gamble in unlicensed casino’s slots.

I have gambled on many casinos, played different slot games from different providers but I have not figured out a way of knowing which is licensed and which is not. Is there anyway to know such information?

Of indeed a casino hosted unlicensed game in their platform, they can face litigation and pay through their nose. The question is, can casinos take such big risk?

Could be pirated versions of the providers, mimicking their originals, or just white label platforms that aggregate games from those providers but not directly to them.

Honestly, are there reasons to use those platforms that are probably a lot less transparent and might scam you without having anyone to resort to? We have so many reputable casinos that do things right. Let's say for example Yeet, on my signature, they are licensed by Anjoua and are built by know people on the crypto community. If you have issues, they have a reputation to keep and will be a lot more safer than white label casinos without a license.

I mean, how do you even tell the difference between a casino who is fully licensed by their providers to host their games and another one which is using a pirated or unofficial/unlicensed version of their games?
Where do you find that information?

The only reliable way possible for me, would be to directly ask the game providers about the casinos which they are oficially working with or reach up to game providers through email with an specific casino name and ask if they have any formal relation with that website, otherwise it would be very difficult to tell.


It could be, but without the source code and the files of the slot game, it would be very difficult and time consuming to do some reverse engineering to game which looks exactly the same as the original, unless the assets of the game got leaked and misused somehow by a casino, so they can sell them under the table to other small and less known casinos which can afford the legal and full license being offered by providers.

That's exactly what I was thinking. They could just clone the game's theme and have it work completely differently in their code.

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As for the OP, perhaps the licenses you think aren't yours are because in some countries you can create a license with one name and name your casino using another. It doesn't necessarily mean you're using a license that doesn't belong to you, obviously as long as it's legally documented.

Yeah it's interesting, I search on google, they said popular gambling providers won't accept unlicensed casinos because it would harm their reputation.

Probably there's a loophole, I read they integrate the providers to casinos by purchasing their API and I see there are few third party are offered their service. They might give access to any casino.

The license usually at the bottom, most of them use Curacao (GCB) or Anjouan (sickle and stars).

And then you can't trust that they aren't rigged. Sometimes you like a provider because you know they are fair and have fun games, so you go to an unlicensed casino and play that same game just to find out that it's a copy of the game but rigged with much lower chances of success. It's the recipe to lose money when we have trusted licensed casinos. :P

License or not, i think we should leave that aspect for the government to control, the casinos are the best entity in this to talk about it, if they are  truly operating under a license provider of not, because they know what they are up to or less.

Some like me may not bother in search of which is operating under a license and which is not, gambling sometimes will also have to come with preference, whereby we are being selective of the gambling platform to use, this can comes by selecting for a reputable one, whose information will be credible enough to trust about.

The casino business is big now and with the rate of proliferation we are seeing now, it is expected that there could be one or two of them exhibiting some sharp practices. It is our duty to vet the platform we use to avoid playing unlicensed games, which could be heavily rigged against the players. I think we have seen several complaints of people who felt that the casino they played was not fair to them, this night be the case.

I guess it's possible that such unlicensed casinos have a way (loophole) of adding those games to their casino, those games might look the same like it's from the real game providers meanwhile it's not and they make it look so. If certainly game providers doesn't allow unlicensed casinos to run their game, it clearly explains that the game are owned by the casinos and they can rig results. There not casinos am using that is not licensed and I don't know if there's any popular casino that is not yet licensed. Do people even trust those casinos that are not licensed?

Players in gambling restricted territories resolve to the black market to bet, but gambling commisions have legal and strict actions against illegal casinos running legitimate software license. The gaming provider is also at risk, if caught, and none would ever try issuing license to  illegal gambling dens. Like a user said above, they use infringed copies of the software to run such casinos, and gamers are at risk of being unregulated.

You are misunderstanding me as well as the post under discussion. The post is referring to casinos listing slot games of providers without the official license of the provider. It is not about the license of the casinos but the games they list in their platform. I can verify the validity of casino license but that of the provider games in their platform is what I cannot verify.

I don't know and never thought about such licenses though I always play in very well known and reputable casinos which are in the top list here in the forum. I never thought that deep if they have such 3rd party license slot provider but I know they do for the simple reason that different casinos in the top list offer different slot providers meaning they really care about every single detail including every type of license. I believe that most people can find everything they need to in these very well known and reputable casinos and I see no reason why to play in newly established before seeing a substantial feedback for these new ones.

Obviously there are some loopholes they are using to avoid getting caught up with the law, just like players would use VPN to bypass restrictions. We might not really know how these unlicensed casinos do it, that is there little secret which they would maintain to avoid being caught.

As for players who use unlicensed casinos, that's a big risk they are taking. Some of these casinos are not scammers, they have pure intentions, just that they are still facing some challenges with being licensed, while many others could be from scammers who want to take advantage of gamblers.

To be on the safer side, it is generally advisable for gamblers to use only licensed casinos.

I think i should be able to get your point, which seems different form what you have been told from the previous reply from Jawhead999, a casino may claim to have been licensed under a particular provider, but the actual sense may be false claim, they can even brought a list that this are the names of the license providers we are using, of which they are not subscribed under these providers, some ma tend to lie, pretend and uses information they lack access to, this is now left between them and the organization, some may sue them, some may not be aware they are being used under fake licensing, while some may know and do nothing about it.

Ive always found it a bit suspicious how some unlicensed sites offer popular slots like everything’s legit. They probably have some workaround, but that doesn’t mean they’re trustworthy. Without a license, there’s no guarantee the games are fair or anyone to turn to if something goes wrong. Personally, that’s not a risk I’d take, no matter how professional the site looks at first glance

That's true, those that perform tricks like this are liable to go extra miles in doing something more even worse and they are part of the reasons that constitutes why some will have to say that some casinos are not to be trusted, and to be frank, some are not actually expected to be trusted because the entire proceedings to what they are implementing were under the foundation of lies, which is uncalled for, trust must be there when using a casino, the same way they expect their users to be loyal.

You are absolutely right on what you just stated above, and that's the exact same question I was able to ask O.P if is there any way or website people could use to check or verify if a casino is actually licensed or not. Because to be frankly speaking, I have gambled on many casinos too, and it's also hard to practically identify if a casino is licensed or not. And I will be glad if O.P can educate us more on this.
However, I made a little research on Google, and I was made to understand that before a casino could have access to games offered by top-tier game provider likes "Pragmatic Play and Hacksaw Gaming" that there are certain number of criterias a casino must meet, such as;

1. The casino must have a valid license from a recognized regulatory body (i.e Curaçao eGaming)
2. The casino must provide a solid business plan, necessary documents and must not be link to fraud.
3. The casino must have a robust iGaming platform
4. The casino must have a clear marketing strategy like, what jurisdiction the casino intends to operate and how they intend to market their games e.t.c.

However, I will be glad to know how to verify if a casino is actually licensed or not, if their is any online checker for such purpose.

Once you don’t have a license what so ever I am not trusting that sites, I won’t wait for anyone to accuse the site of being unfair, if a site can go around the rules and offer popular slot, sport games without a license then they are not going to be fair . But still how do you recognize and original license? A site can attach a fake license if they can’t pass working without a license.

If we are doubting, we could always check their customer support.

There's one slot provider called PG Soft, which has a feature of checking their legitimacy if they are really paid by the online casino to input their slots. It will be better if all slot providers have the same feature so that every gambler can check it.
I don't know the reasons behind it, but I think many online casinos now are stealing slot games just so they can continue their business. JILI slot providers is mostly the one being used by scam websites, and perhaps it's because it's easier to copy.

I think it is the responsibility of the game provider to call out casinos that are using unlicensed/pirated software of their games.  Government authorities won't act unless someone file a complaint since they won't know whether a casino is using the pirated version.

When it comes to being unlicensed, it is also the regulatory board that should call out for these casinos, this is where the government regulatory board will com in.


Most of us are either redirected to a casino through ad link or from our friends who recommend it.  It is true that most gambler seldom check whether a casino has a license or not unless he had experience either personally or through friends having problems with illegal casinos.


The possibility is too high for a casino who is offering unlicensed game to be rigged since there is no regular audit from the authority to check the fairness of the software/program used.

What are you even talking about here - whether a casino has a license to operate a specific game that has been branded and created by a white label solution? They would have to go to quite a lot of effort to steal intellectual property like that and I'd guess that most hosting providers would take their site offline if presented with copyright infringement notices in such cases. If you're talking about more general casino licensing, it is not something that is absolutely required in every jurisdiction. If the owner of the casino lives in a place without the requirement to have casino licensing, then they are technically not doing anything wrong. Casino licensing has always been a facade anyway and offers customers very little protection, some of these small micro nations that offer them for sale will do very little when it comes to enforcing decent standards when a casino buys a license from them - it is simply seen as a cash cow way to make revenue.

Yes there is always a way to know the license casino and those without license, just like some said above, when you visit every casino official website, down at the bottom where you will find about the casino or terms and conditions there is always a room for license provision and every other statement that has to do with it!

Yes of course, I think I have seen a case somewhere that a casino decide to run ads and everything except getting license because they couldn't afford a lot with there low budget financing so they took the risk to operate for months without license to get financed and later go for licenses, I can't find where I read it but I know I have read it somewhere.

This is also a new discovery for me and I can now see the reason why most of these casinos have their type of license which they operate have and also they country where they got it from.

Those casino that don't have am actual operating licence are a dangerous for other real casinos because they they underground casinos. I actually do support regulations of these the gambling
insite because they need to make it difficult for them and others like to operate in the country, scamming a lot of people.

Thank you for all the new information shared here, it’s been a pleasure to read some replies here. However, it seems some members either misunderstood my topic or just didn’t bother to read it in full. Even though the title summarizes it clearly, the main question still;

How are some casino owners able to launch and operate their platforms without getting an official iGaming license from legal parts, especially when their casinos support crypto gambling. And on top of that how do they manage to integrate and run slots from multiple providers and letting players to gamble as if everything is legit?

Well, for the reason I think it already seems obvious, either they being manipulative, or they simply can’t afford a license. But the real question is how they are doing it.

If what’s happening is that these slot providers’ codes are being nulled or the providers scripts are being leaked and sold on the black market, which is extremely dangerous if we assumed it’s possible. It would also mean that anyone can launch a casino with very little fees, run promotions and scam thousands of players without any control.

Moreover, Ive also come across new information that some casinos might get access to provider slots without having a license themselves, just by using options like White Label or Turnkey solutions. I’m now curious to know which casinos are operating under those models.

How do you know a casino is operating on an unlicensed document, do a casino that has license had a unique code where it can be tracked and confirm elsewhere, and on what platform. I am asking this question because I might be using a casino that doesn't have good intentions for user rigging off their money unnecessarily.

If the casino is licensed, they will show their license proudly most likely on their home page. Depending on the country would be the name of the license and the logo. So, it will also help if you knew your country’s licensing laws and systems. You can also search it from the licensing authority’s domain if the casino exists there.

Unlicensed casinos won't bother to manipulate a game by a game provider. They need more customers.

If they planned to make their games rigged, most users would surely spam reviews about it, so what's the point of establishing an online casino if they can't attract more customers? There's no way, at higher chances, that unlicensed casinos will try to manipulate the original ones. They will earn more money if they just allow the official game providers to do the work.

The scam part of these unlicensed casinos is mostly related to deposits and withdrawals. Not by manipulating games of those popular game providers. Besides, most games handled by a popular game provider are untouchable, and the algorithm can only be unlocked by the game provider itself. Too much effort on the part of casino owners if the goal is only to scam.

I don't really know how a casino or several casinos can run slot games without official licenses, and I have tried to find out more and I can't find any certain information, for some reason it's very difficult, but I often hear or even see some people directly playing it, and what I remember the most is that there is a slot game from a site that seems to come from a certain provider (a well known one), and the characteristics of the game are that it has a black dragon logo and it is also on the scatter, which can produce a multiplication of up to 100,000x if I am not mistaken, and I was curious whether it came from the provider the site said or not, but I found that it didn't come from there, so I assume it is not official.

Agree with someone said pirated the slot.

So, In my country gambling is having a problem. Someone who work for creating the site, can make some clone or pirated from the provider which is the game ca be manipulated like (RTP/bonus) in background.

These no need license anythings, since they're pirated the provider.

having crypto as the main method of payment actually makes it easier for the casino to go unlicensed because they don’t have to cooperate with any third party that would require them to show documents

and the players usually don’t even look for the license which is why casinos can just establish their casinos unlicensed
the games are pirated and yes they can be scams or they can be real businesses that just don’t want to go get license but for maximum safety just go for the licensed casinos

There are two ways I will suggest you check how a casino is licensed or not. Licensed casino often share a trademark logo or the name of the a regulatory body which they got their license from in the official website. So you may often see this, eCOGRA (for fair gaming), SSL secure badges, regulatory logos (MGA, UKGC, etc.).

Another way is to check every regulatory bodies and find out which casinos have passed through license under them.

I don't think its even possible to operate an online slot without the license of the operator. It's not just a code but an active interaction between the balance of the casino and the slot operator with APIs. There could be some slots where the site could inject the value on demand while the slot code is offline hosted on the casino itself but I don't think slot operators could be making such codes with loopholes considering the complexity of making the game itself.
The reason why we are not seeing a license or seeing a limited license could be because the slot operators might not have updated the license data or are giving a trial or extension to the casino knowingly.

To understand the legality of licensing casino games, a player, in my opinion, must have some experience. If a casino uses machines without licenses, then such behavior is probably aimed at random people, those who will not understand the correctness of the actions, since they will be attracted by other, more tempting conditions that such casinos offer. That is why there are discussions on the forum about how players can and know how to choose those places, those casinos, where their game will not be threatened by any deception or fraud, and not be so naive as to allow their actions to be manipulated.


Always in any situation that seems incredible and impossible, in our opinion, we need to take into account the fact that "everything that can't be bought for money can always be bought for big money." I think that many things in our lives happen according to such unwritten laws.

I wish you shared their names because I would actually be interested in those casinos. While the licensed casinos appear safe and sound, they sometimes scam people too. On the hand, unlicensed casinos have only their reputation as a shield. Once the crowd labels them as scammers, they are finished. So a trusted casino without a license must be doing something right. Actually not having a license is a plus in a situation like that where the casino has a solid reputation. If the casino don’t pay a fee for the license, they can offer their players better odds. Everybody wins. (Except the government but who cares)

First thing, the whole Igaming thing, there is no universal Igaming license, this is just a term in the industry, in the Uk is a remote betting / remote casino license. Curacao calls it online gaming license, NJ and NE is internet gaming permit.
Second, they get an Anjouan one, which is around 15k euros with all costs plus 2000 a year, and that's it!A casino that has a license can integrate slots easily, they're legit, this doesn't mean they are lawfully operating everywhere.

Get a VPN from a country that restricts those games, for Pragmatic for example is France and UK.
If with that IP the slots are still available on that casino for you to play, they are not legit.
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Obvious reason?
I can't think of a single obvious reason to hide the name of a casino that is unlicensed and is lying and scamming its clients.

I never really thought about this before. All this time, I’ve only been playing slots at trusted casinos here and on other reliable forums. But now that I know about this, there’s no way I’d spend even a cent at an unlicensed casino just to play slots. The more reputable casinos already offer the same games, have a good reputation, and there’s no need to take unnecessary risks gambling at sketchy places where you’re more likely to lose money faster. I haven’t had that kind of bad experience myself, but I’ve heard from an old friend that unlicensed casinos tend to drain your gambling budget quickly and rarely give you any win.

I find it interesting that there are numerous casinos that operate without procuring their respective valid licenses. If this were the case, then most likely they operate illegally through the use of VPNs or fake IPs to establish their residence.

If you know a gambling website that operates illegally, then this should be reported and tagged in order for the users to avoid using their services. Continued use with that gambling website is like playing with fire- expect burns and damages on your end.


This could be the possible reason.

In the Philippines, if a foreign corporation wishes to do business, then they must secure the necessary permit and license in order to have a legal standing in court. The only problem would be the execution of such ruling by the judge. In application to this, if a gambling website operates outside the sphere of legality, then it would be difficult to enforce any action against them.

I wish the names of these casinos would be listed so that we can actually visit them and compare them with the others. I am really itchy to know which casinos it is. And as for those loopholes, it doesn't come as a strange thing to me because I know that there is the black market for anything from cloned APIs to all sorts of things that look like they are the real thing on the surface without a closer inspection. I sure know that these casinos may like not advertised in places that would increase scrutiny on their business.

For sure there are loopholes that they use but obviously they won't tell it publicly because that is gonna bust them. In terms of safety, I can't totally say that they are a scam because some are still able to pay me but it would be better for us to just stick with the verified ones of course. The game can look the same if you don't really focus on the small details but as soon as you do, that's the time you will notice the difference.

A few of it, I observed is their thumbnail looks weird and then inside of the game, I noticed that the payout comes first before even the reel stops spinning. There is also no replay option when I toggle the menu.

It shows that these regulators are not doing their jobs. There should be constant supervision of casinos to identify they ones that are illegally operating under their name. These regulations should always have an updated list of casinos that are registered with them, and unregistered ones should be reported to the relevant authorities.


It is not safe to use such casinos because they are not registered and regulated. These casinos need to be avoided because using a false licence shows that they cannot be trusted.

The truth is that,most Gamblers don't even value unlicensed because for some casinos,it shows no customer or legal protection for the players.Some of them have their way of ignoring and avoiding certain useful policies and regulative procedures.Operating illegally can be easily tampered even unfair.