UK online casinos, checked against the licence register

By The Review Room editorial team · Published 14 November 2026 · Updated 14 November 2026 · 6 min read

An online casino is legal for players in Great Britain only if the business behind it holds a remote casino licence from the Gambling Commission. You can confirm that yourself on the Commission's free public register in about two minutes^[1]. We did it for bet365, LeoVegas and Mr Green on 14 November 2026, and the results show why the check matters: the name on the website is often not the name on the licence.

Three brands, checked on 14 November 2026

We read each brand's entry on the Gambling Commission register and recorded what it says, word for word where it matters. These are record checks, not play tests: we did not open accounts, deposit or claim offers.

Each of the three shows a different way a brand connects to a licence. bet365 is a trading name of a company with a different name. LeoVegas is the company name itself, with no separate trading names on file. Mr Green's original licence holder has gone, and the brand's UK domain now sits under another company's licence. A player who searched only for the brand name would read all three wrongly at least once.

The rules every licensed UK casino must follow in 2026

A Gambling Commission licence is useful to you because of the rules that come with it. These are the ones that change what you see when you sign up and play.

Two of these rules are new enough that some older guides still get them wrong. Our page on UK casino bonus rules after the 10x cap works through what a capped offer costs you in real play, and the £5 and £2 slot stake limits page explains which games the limits do and do not cover.

How to check any UK casino in two minutes

1. Scroll to the casino's footer and note the company name and Gambling Commission account number. Licensed sites normally display them.
2. Open the Gambling Commission public register and search for that account number or company name.^[1]
3. Confirm that a Casino activity is listed as Remote and Active.
4. Open the trading names and domain names tabs and confirm the brand or web address you are using appears there.

If any step fails, do not deposit until you understand why. The step people skip is the last one, and it is the one that catches copycat sites borrowing a real company's number. Our step-by-step UK casino licence check covers every field on the register page and the statuses you might meet.

Warning signs that a site is not licensed for Great Britain

Because the rules above are compulsory, breaking any of them is a strong sign that a site is not licensed here. Be wary if a casino:

• accepts a credit card deposit, or lets you play before it has checked your age and identity;
• advertises itself as "not on GAMSTOP", which means it does not take part in the scheme every GB-licensed online operator belongs to;
• offers a bonus with wagering above 10 times, or a sign-up deal that makes you bet on sport to unlock casino spins;
• lets you stake more than £5 a spin on online slots;
• shows no Gambling Commission account number, or one that leads to a different company with no link to the brand.

Unlicensed sites are not bound by any of the protections above. If something goes wrong, you lose the UK complaint and dispute routes that a licence brings.

What we check, and what we don't

Every write-up on this site starts from public records: the licence register, the Commission's own rules and government publications, each cited with the date we read it. We do not rank casinos, award stars or take money from operators, and there are no sign-up links on the site. That also means we cannot tell you how fast a site pays out or how good its games are, because we have not played there. The review methodology sets out exactly how a check is done and how we handle corrections.

Paying in brings in its own rules, including the credit card ban and the checks banks and operators run on larger deposits. They are covered in our guide to UK casino payments and ID checks.