Anjouan casino licence in the UK: what the offshore authorisation does — and does not — cover

Updated September 2026

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Data current as of 23 September 2026, verified against the Gambling Commission’s public register of gambling businesses.

A UK player typing “anjouan casino licence” into a search bar is usually not looking for geography. They are looking for permission: whether the offshore authorisation stamped on the footer of some casino site is enough to play safely, fairly and lawfully from a kitchen in Leeds. It is not, and the gap between the question and the answer is the entire shape of this page. An Anjouan licence lets an operator set up shop. It does nothing at all to authorise that operator to take a deposit from someone in Great Britain.

That single fact rewrites every comparison on this page. A UK player can land on a casino whose licence appears impressive, in a jurisdiction with its own offshore finance authority, with its own web pages describing player protections. None of it converts an offshore authorisation into a Gambling Commission licence. None of it makes the deposit lawful. None of it brings GAMSTOP, the stake caps, the wagering cap, the financial-vulnerability check, the approved alternative dispute resolution service, or the Commission’s complaints route. The reader’s job here is to understand that distinction clearly enough to choose on it. Everything below is built to support that choice.

What an Anjouan licence is, and what its history says about it

The island, the authority, and the licence it issues

Anjouan is the easternmost island of the Comoros archipelago in the south-western Indian Ocean, an autonomous island within the Union of the Comoros, with its capital at Mutsamudu. In 2002 the Anjouan Offshore Finance Authority was established to promote the island as an offshore financial centre and tax haven. The internet gaming arm operating under that authority now styles itself the “Internet Gaming Regulatory Authority” and issues separate B2C and B2B internet gaming licences. That is the document a casino displays when it says it holds an Anjouan gambling licence.

A regulator the central bank does not recognise

In 2014 the Central Bank of Comoros stated that no licence had been delivered for offshore financial activities on Anjouan and that it does not recognise licences issued by the Anjouan Offshore Finance Authority. The same picture appears in GIABA’s May 2024 mutual evaluation report on the Union of the Comoros, based on an on-site visit in July 2023, which records that gambling is prohibited under the Comorian Penal Code. An offshore gaming licence issued on an island whose own central bank does not recognise the licensing authority, and whose national criminal code prohibits gambling, is the authorisation a UK player is being asked to rely on.

What the licence authorises, exactly

The Anjouan licence authorises the operator to run an internet gaming business. It does not authorise the operator to take a deposit from a person in Great Britain. It does not require participation in GAMSTOP. It does not require the stake caps that apply under a Gambling Commission licence. It does not require the 10x wagering cap that has applied to bonuses since 19 December 2025. It does not give the player a route to a UK alternative dispute resolution service when a withdrawal is refused. Each of those protections belongs to a different regime — the regime that runs the register a UK player should actually be checking.

The UK regime a player loses by stepping outside it

The Gambling Act 2005 and the Licensing Act 2014

The Gambling Act 2005, which received royal assent on 7 April 2005, established the Gambling Commission as the regulator for Great Britain and set objectives of preventing crime, ensuring fairness, and protecting children and vulnerable people. Before the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014, operators licensed in the European Economic Area, Gibraltar, or “white-listed” jurisdictions such as Alderney, the Isle of Man, Tasmania and Antigua and Barbuda could serve Great Britain customers without a Gambling Commission licence. That loophole is closed.

The Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014 came into force on 1 December 2014. From that date any remote gambling operator transacting with or advertising to consumers in Great Britain must hold a Gambling Commission operating licence, regardless of where the operator is based, and must pay 15% point-of-consumption tax on gross gambling yield from GB customers. Under that Act it is a criminal offence to provide or advertise remote gambling facilities to Great Britain consumers without a Gambling Commission licence, regardless of any licence, such as one from Anjouan, that the operator holds elsewhere. The Anjouan authorisation does not neutralise section 33 of the Gambling Act 2005. It runs alongside it.

The stake, time and bonus rules

Under a Gambling Commission licence the game itself is constrained. Online slots carry a maximum stake per game cycle — £5 for players aged 25 and over from 9 April 2025 and £2 for players aged 18 to 24 from 21 May 2025. There is no state-set deposit or loss ceiling, but operators must prompt a customer to set a financial limit before the first deposit, a requirement that took effect on 31 October 2025. Auto-play has been banned since 31 October 2021. A slot spin may not be faster than 2.5 seconds. Losses disguised as wins are banned. Since 19 December 2025 wagering requirements are capped at 10x and mixed-product bonuses are banned. Anonymous play is not possible at a licensed site. None of these constraints follows an Anjouan-licensed operator offshore.

Identification, credit cards and financial-vulnerability checks

The minimum age at a UK-licensed site is 18, and name, address and date of birth are verified before the first deposit or any play, a requirement that has applied since 7 May 2019. Credit cards have been banned for gambling since 14 April 2020, including credit cards routed through e-wallets. Financial vulnerability checks run at £150 net deposits in a rolling 30 days from 28 February 2025, using public data only. Wider financial risk assessments have been announced but are not yet in force.

An offshore operator on an Anjouan licence is not bound by any of these. The site may run credit-card deposits, may not verify identity before play, may allow stakes well above £5 per spin, may attach wagering requirements of 40x or more, and may not interrupt play at any deposit threshold. It is the absence of these constraints that the offshore marketing tends to describe as “freedom”.

The £10,000 turnover band: how the 10x cap bites on a bonus

The prescribed calculation for this page is a wagering-turnover band under the wagering cap that took effect on 19 December 2025. The condition that makes it a band rather than a single figure is the size of the bonus itself, because every pound of bonus now demands ten pounds of wagered play. Take a £100 bonus at the cap and the required turnover is £1,000. Take a £1,000 bonus at the cap and the required turnover is £10,000. The cap does not change. The cost to the player scales with the headline number.

A £100 bonus therefore means roughly £1,000 of play before withdrawal, assuming only the bonus amount is wagered. A £500 bonus means £5,000. A £1,000 bonus means £10,000. The arithmetic is the same — bonus times ten — and the band it produces, from £1,000 to £10,000 of required play across the typical welcome bonus sizes a UK reader will meet, is the real cost of a “bonus” at a UK-licensed site after the cap. At an Anjouan-licensed site there is no cap, and a 30x or 40x wagering requirement is the marketing equivalent of turning the same £1,000 bonus into £30,000 or £40,000 of required play. The 10x cap is the protection. Stepping outside it removes it.

What an Anjouan player gives up in practice

Putting it all together: an Anjouan-licensed site removes the stake cap, removes the auto-play ban, removes the spin-speed floor, removes the losses-disguised-as-wins ban, removes the 10x wagering cap, removes the credit-card ban, removes the identity check at first deposit, removes GAMSTOP, removes the financial-vulnerability check, removes the Commission’s complaints route, and removes approved UK alternative dispute resolution. That is the inventory a reader is comparing against when an offshore site describes itself as “flexible”. The flexibility is the absence of the rule. The player pays for it with the protection.

What the Gambling Commission register actually looks like

How the register is structured

The public register of gambling businesses on gamblingcommission.gov.uk lists every operator that holds a Gambling Commission licence. Each business appears as an account, and each remote casino operating licence number has the form account-R-number-suffix, where the leading six digits repeat the licence holder’s account number and the R marks a remote, online licence. The register can be searched online and downloaded in full as CSV or Excel files.

On 18 September 2026 the register’s business list held 139 entries holding an active remote casino operating licence. That number is not the count of brands — several brands can share one licensee — and it is not the count of websites. It is the count of businesses that pass the test the Act sets.

The domain list and the white-label layer

The same register’s domain list records each website against the licence account that runs it, with a status of Active, Inactive or White Label. On 18 September 2026 it held 1065 active and 361 white-label domain entries. A white-label site trades under another company’s licence — its brand is its own, but the licence behind it is not. That distinction is what makes the licence number worth checking. The brand on the site is not always the licence holder.

How to check a brand against the register

A reader who wants to verify a brand opens the register, searches the domain, and reads the licence number and account number that come back. If no entry exists, no Commission licence exists for that domain. The register is the whole test. A footer image of an offshore authorisation is not.

Responsible gambling on the two sides of the divide

GAMSTOP and the mandatory participation rule

GAMSTOP is the national online self-exclusion scheme, and participation has been a mandatory condition of every online Gambling Commission licence since 31 March 2020. Self-exclusion periods are six months, one year or five years and cannot be cancelled early. A UK player who has self-excluded through GAMSTOP is, by the rules, blocked from every Gambling Commission licensed site. That is the point of the scheme. An Anjouan-licensed site is not bound by GAMSTOP and is not required to honour a self-exclusion registered through it. The same player can be excluded from every UK site and still deposit on an offshore one. This is the protection a player signing up to GAMSTOP is paying for, and it stops at the register’s edge.

Safer-gambling tools at a licensed site

A licensed site runs additional safer-gambling tools. Reality checks interrupt play at fixed intervals. Time-outs allow short, reversible breaks. Self-exclusion beyond GAMSTOP is available direct from the operator. Affordability prompts and the financial-vulnerability check at £150 net deposits in a rolling 30 days run by default. The National Gambling Helpline (GamCare) and GambleAware are signposted. None of this is automatic at an Anjouan-licensed site, and the operator’s own terms are the only thing binding it.

Help that exists whether the site is licensed or not

The National Gambling Helpline, GamCare and GambleAware are free, confidential and operate independently of any operator’s licence. A reader who is concerned about their own gambling, or someone else’s, can reach them from the UK regardless of where they have been playing. That route exists for the Anjouan-licensed player too. It is not the same as the protection the licence would have offered. It is the help the page points to either way.

Comparison: Anjouan-licensed exposure versus Gambling Commission cover

The table below sets out, in a single view, what changes when a UK player steps from a Gambling Commission licensed site onto one relying on an Anjouan authorisation. It is built from the Act, the Commission’s published rules, and the register itself. Where a cell would otherwise repeat a rule the reader already has, it has been omitted; the column the rule belongs to is named plainly so the gap is the point.

What an Anjouan licence changes for a UK player

The pattern across the columns is not subtle. Every row is the same row in different costume: a UK rule that exists on one side and is absent on the other. The Anjouan cell is “not bound” almost everywhere because the regime that wrote the rule is not the regime that issued the licence. That is what the licence looks like when it is read honestly.

Operators on the Gambling Commission register

The brands below all hold an active Gambling Commission remote casino operating licence as of 18 September 2026 and are listed on the public register. They appear here not as recommendations but as the comparison set against which an Anjouan-licensed site must be weighed. Every GB-licensed online operator must take part in GAMSTOP. Several brands can share one licensee, and where they do they are presented as one operator group, not as separate businesses.

The register lists 139 such businesses on the date the data was checked. Ten are shown here. The “subject support” column is empty across every row because none of these brands hold an Anjouan licence, and presenting them as if they did would be the exact error the page is built to correct. They appear on the page because they are the regime the Anjouan licence is being compared against.

Paddy Power and BetVictor under PPB Games and BV Gaming

Paddy Power runs under PPB Games Limited on licence 039411-R-319335-010, with Paddy Power listed as an active domain. BetVictor runs under BV Gaming Limited on 039576-R-319370-028, with BetVictor active on the register. Both are well-known high-street names that migrated online under their own licence accounts, and both sit inside the GAMSTOP and stake-cap regime the Act sets. For a player choosing between this operator group and an Anjouan-licensed alternative, the comparison reduces to a single question: which set of rules do they want their deposit governed by.

Unibet under Platinum Gaming

Unibet runs on Platinum Gaming Limited’s 045322-R-324275-019, with unibet.co.uk active on the register. A long-established multi-jurisdiction brand, kept under the same UK regime as the rest of the comparison set. The site is required to verify identity before first deposit, to honour GAMSTOP, and to enforce the £5 stake cap at age 25 and over and £2 at 18 to 24.

Sky Vegas under Bonne Terre Gaming

Sky Vegas runs under Bonne Terre Gaming Limited on 065519-R-339675-002. Sky Vegas is an active domain on the register. Same regime: GAMSTOP, the stake caps, the 10x wagering cap, the 2.5-second spin floor, the credit-card ban, the financial-vulnerability check. The licence holder is the relevant name on the register, not the brand on the masthead.

kwiff under Eaton Gate Gaming

kwiff runs under Eaton Gate Gaming Limited on 044448-R-323408-017, with kwiff listed active. A smaller licensee, but on the same Commission register as the larger names — which means the same Act applies to it. A player choosing kwiff over an offshore alternative is choosing the register, not the marketing.

bet365 under Hillside (UK Gaming) ENC

bet365 runs under Hillside (UK Gaming) ENC on 055149-R-331499-004, with bet365 active on the register. One of the higher-volume licensees on the file and therefore one of the more visible test cases for the regime. A player using bet365 is using a site that has paid the 15% point-of-consumption tax, joined GAMSTOP, and submitted to the Commission’s social responsibility code in full.

MrQ under Tek Fox Ltd

MrQ runs under Tek Fox Ltd on 060629-R-337532-004, with MrQ active. A newer account on the register and a useful counter-example: the regime does not require age, only that the licence holder satisfy it. MrQ, like the rest, must verify identity before first deposit, must enforce the stake cap, must honour self-exclusion through GAMSTOP. The licence is the obligation; the size of the operator is irrelevant.

Midnite under Dribble Media Limited

Midnite runs under Dribble Media Limited on 042647-R-321653-022, with Midnite active. Another smaller licensee. The point is the same: the register entry is what authorises the deposit, and the Commission rules are what governs the player once the deposit is made.

Virgin Games under Gamesys Operations Limited

Virgin Games runs as a white-label domain under Gamesys Operations Limited, on licence 038905-R-319430-022. The white-label status is the detail that matters: the brand on the site is not the licence holder behind it. A player who searches the register for “Virgin Games” finds Gamesys Operations Limited, and that is the entity the Act binds. The brand name is not the regulated entity.

Grosvenor Casinos under Rank Interactive (Gibraltar) Limited

Grosvenor Casinos runs under Rank Interactive (Gibraltar) Limited on 057924-R-334666-005, with Grosvenor Casinos active. A land-based casino chain operating online under the same Commission regime. Gibraltar in the licence-holder name refers to the company structure, not the licence. The licence is the Gambling Commission’s, and the rules are the Commission’s.

How a UK player ends up on an Anjouan-licensed site

The marketing route

The route is usually a search engine result, an external promotional page, or a social-media advert. An Anjouan-licensed site spends heavily on marketing that targets players looking for large bonuses, no verification, no GAMSTOP, and high stakes. The marketing language tends to frame each of these absences as a feature. None of them is a feature under a UK regime. They are the gaps left by being outside it.

The verification gap

At a UK-licensed site, identity is checked before the first deposit or any play. At an Anjouan-licensed site it may not be, and the deposit may go through on an unverified account. The reader who values the speed of an unverified deposit is paying for that speed with the protection the check would have given them. A player who has self-excluded through GAMSTOP, or who is under 25 and so subject to the £2 stake cap, will find the unverified offshore path more permissive. Permissive is not the same as lawful. The deposit still breaches section 33 of the Gambling Act 2005.

The dispute route that is not there

When a UK-licensed site refuses a withdrawal, the player has a structured complaints procedure, an approved alternative dispute resolution provider, and a regulator that can be asked to look. When an Anjouan-licensed site refuses a withdrawal, the player has the operator’s own terms and the licensing authority in Anjouan. The two are not the same distance from a kitchen in Leeds.

Payment methods that an Anjouan-licensed site may offer — and what changes

Apple Pay at the two ends of the divide

Apple Pay was developed and operated by Apple Inc. and launched on 20 October 2014, initially supporting only US-issued payment cards, with UK-issued card support from 14 July 2015. The mechanism is tokenisation: the actual card number is replaced with a device-specific tokenised Device Primary Account Number, and a dynamic security code is generated for each transaction. In-store, payments use near-field communication. On an iPhone with Face ID the user double-clicks the side button; on Touch ID models, the Home button. Apple itself states that a supported card from a participating issuer is required, and that Apple Pay is not available in all markets.

None of that is altered by the licence on the casino side. What changes is whether the underlying card is allowed. At a UK-licensed site, credit-card funding is banned, including via e-wallets, since 14 April 2020. Apple Pay on a debit card is unaffected. Apple Pay funding through a credit card, even where the wallet sits between the card and the operator, is not allowed. At an Anjouan-licensed site, both debit and credit funding may pass. The reader using Apple Pay at an offshore site therefore runs a higher chance that the underlying funding instrument is one a UK-licensed site would have refused, with no Commission rule to point at if the transaction later turns out to have been one.

AstroPay at the two ends of the divide

AstroPay was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Uruguay, operating as a global digital wallet offering online payments, virtual and physical debit cards, and peer-to-peer transfers. Its UK entity, Larstal Limited, is an electronic money institution authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011. Its Isle of Man entity, AstroPay Global (IOM) Limited, is licensed by the Isle of Man Financial Services Authority for money transmission.

The wallet’s regulatory standing is real on its own side. What changes at the casino end is the operator’s licence. At a UK-licensed site, AstroPay as a funding source is read against the credit-card ban and the verification requirement; a verified debit card is fine, a credit-funded route is not. At an Anjouan-licensed site, neither rule binds, and the wallet’s own FCA authorisation is the only regulated touchpoint in the chain.

The wider payment rule

Across both methods the pattern is the same. The wallet is regulated. The casino is the variable. A UK-licensed casino adds the GAMSTOP and stake-cap regime on top of whatever wallet the player uses. An Anjouan-licensed casino does not. The choice of wallet is not the choice that determines the player’s protection.

The offshore-authority picture, in plain terms

What the offshore authorisation does, finally

An Anjouan licence authorises an operator to run an internet gaming business under the Anjouan Offshore Finance Authority. That is what it does. It is the document under which the operator’s corporate structure is set up, the games are tested, and the player complaints are routed to the licensing authority in Anjouan. It is not the document under which the operator takes a UK deposit, and the central bank of the country in which Anjouan sits has stated it does not recognise the licensing authority that issued it.

What the offshore authorisation does not do

It does not authorise the deposit. It does not bring GAMSTOP. It does not bring the £5 / £2 stake cap. It does not bring the 10x wagering cap. It does not bring the credit-card ban. It does not bring the financial-vulnerability check. It does not bring the Commission’s complaints route. It does not bring approved UK ADR. It does not bring the player-protection regime the Act sets up. None of those is a feature the Anjouan licence was written to provide.

What the reader is being asked to compare

The reader is being asked to compare a UK regime, in which a deposit is lawful, in which each of the rules above applies, and in which a refusal of withdrawal has a regulator behind it, with an offshore regime, in which the deposit is not lawful, none of the rules applies, and the only recourse is the operator’s own terms. The cost of stepping outside the UK regime is not a fee. It is every protection the regime would have applied.

The marketing picture versus the cost picture

The marketing word

The marketing language on an Anjouan-licensed site tends to describe large welcome bonuses, fast sign-up, no verification, no GAMSTOP enforcement, and high staking as “flexibility”. The same language recurs across affiliate pages in slightly different words. The flexibility is real, in the sense that the rules are not applied. It is not a benefit in the sense the marketing suggests. The reader is not gaining flexibility. They are losing the application of a rule.

The cost picture

The cost picture is the one the page is built around. A bonus that is uncapped at 30x or 40x means three or four times the required turnover of the same headline amount under the 10x cap. A stake above £5 per spin means the loss rate accelerates faster than the UK regime would allow. A withdrawal refusal with no ADR means the only route is the operator’s own complaints process. None of these costs is a fee. Each is the absence of a protection, and each shows up in the eventual outcome.

Where the cost lands

The cost lands on the player who needs the protection most: the player who has self-excluded through GAMSTOP and is the reason the rule exists, the player on a budget who needs the stake cap to make the game last, the player with a complaint who needs the ADR route to be heard. Each of these is the player the Act was written for. None of them is well served by the offshore alternative.

What a UK reader should do, concretely

Check the register first

The first action is the register. The reader searches the domain, reads the licence number, reads the licence holder’s name. If no entry exists, no Commission licence exists for that site, and the deposit is not lawful under section 33 of the Gambling Act 2005.

Read the terms of any bonus before claiming

At a UK-licensed site, the 10x wagering cap is the ceiling. Anything claiming to offer more is either misrepresenting the cap or operating outside it. The 10x cap took effect on 19 December 2025, and any bonus terms offered above it on a UK-licensed site after that date are not compliant with the licence.

Honour GAMSTOP and the site’s own safer-gambling tools

A player who has self-excluded should not seek workarounds. The point of GAMSTOP is the absence of a workaround. The safer-gambling tools at the licensed site — reality checks, time-outs, deposit limits — are part of the same protection. They are not the marketing. They are the rule.

Reach the National Gambling Helpline if the choice has gone wrong

The National Gambling Helpline, GamCare and GambleAware are free, confidential and operate independently of any operator. A reader who is concerned about their own gambling, or someone else’s, can reach them whether or not the site they have been using is licensed. That route exists either way.

A short, honest summary

An Anjouan gambling licence authorises an operator to run an internet gaming business. It does not authorise the operator to take a deposit from a UK player. It does not bring the protections the Gambling Act 2005 sets up — GAMSTOP, the stake caps, the 10x wagering cap, the credit-card ban, the financial-vulnerability check, the identity check, the complaints route or the approved ADR. The Gambling Commission’s public register, on 18 September 2026, listed 139 businesses holding an active remote casino operating licence and 1065 active and 361 white-label domains attached to them. The brands shown above are entries on that register. An Anjouan-licensed site is not.

The choice a UK reader is making is not between two licences of the same kind. It is between the regime that protects them and the absence of one. The arithmetic is in the protections, not the marketing.

Frequently asked questions

What does an Anjouan gambling licence actually authorise?

It authorises an operator to run an internet gaming business under the Anjouan Offshore Finance Authority. It does not authorise the operator to take a deposit from a person in Great Britain, and the Central Bank of Comoros stated in 2014 that it does not recognise licences issued by that authority.

Are ID checks still carried out before a first deposit at an Anjouan-licensed site?

Not necessarily. Name, address and date of birth are verified before the first deposit or any play at a Gambling Commission licensed site, a requirement in force since 7 May 2019. An Anjouan-licensed site is not bound by it and may accept a deposit on an unverified account.

Does GAMSTOP self-exclusion apply at an Anjouan-licensed casino?

No. GAMSTOP participation has been a mandatory condition of every online Gambling Commission licence since 31 March 2020, but an Anjouan-licensed site is not required to honour a GAMSTOP registration and may accept deposits from a self-excluded player.

Do the UK’s stake and wagering-requirement caps apply on an Anjouan licence?

No. The £5 maximum stake per game cycle for players aged 25 and over (from 9 April 2025) and £2 for 18 to 24 (from 21 May 2025), and the 10x wagering-requirement cap from 19 December 2025, apply only under a Gambling Commission operating licence and do not bind an Anjouan-licensed site.

Can a UK player use a UK dispute-resolution service if an Anjouan-licensed site refuses a withdrawal?

No. Approved UK alternative dispute resolution and the Commission’s complaints route exist for Gambling Commission licensees. An Anjouan-licensed site does not route through either, and the only recourse is the operator’s own terms and the licensing authority in Anjouan.

Is an Anjouan licence the same thing as a Gambling Commission licence?

No. An Anjouan licence is an offshore authorisation to operate an internet gaming business. A Gambling Commission licence is the authorisation required to lawfully transact with consumers in Great Britain under the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014, which came into force on 1 December 2014.

Published by the rtpslotsguide team.