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As new casinos launch daily we are trying to review all recent licenses issued from MGA. Here is the list of the latest casinos licensed by the authority.
| Casino name | Bonus | License | Games | Launched | Visit casino |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vegas Lounge Casino | 50% Cashback of Up to €400 | MGA, UKGC | 2000+ | 2021 | Read review |
| Hejgo Casino | 10% Weekly Cashback of up to €1000 | MGA | 2500+ | 2021 | Read review |
| Rapid Casino | Welcome Package of Up to €1000 Plus 300 Free Spins | MGA | 1200+ | 2021 | Read review |
| GoSlot Casino | Cashback, Free Spins, and more... | MGA | 3000+ | 2021 | Read review |
| Elite24Bet Casino | 100% Welcome Bonus of Up to €200 Plus Up to 200 Free Spins | MGA | 2600+ | 2021 | Read review |
| BetStorm Casino | 100% Welcome Bonus of Up to £100 Plus 20 Free Spins | MGA, UKGC | 2500+ | 2021 | Read review |
| WoopWin Casino | Welcome Package of Up to €1200 Plus 300 Free Spins | MGA | 3500+ | 2021 | Read review |
| IamSloty Casino | 125% Deposit Match | MGA | 5000+ | 2021 | Read review |
According to the feedback and reviews we have collected from our players, here is a list of the 5 best MGA casinos.
There are also other great casinos licensed by MGA which you can find in the beginning of this page.
When you gamble, you naturally gravitate towards the casinos that make you feel safe, that seem transparent and straightforward on their operations. A casino must guarantee the player’s security and act in a responsible way towards them.
Tons of shady websites pretend to be serious casinos but fail consistently to provide a good service, so these days it is hard to tell when you’re about to be scammed in an elaborate trap set to look like a regular online casino.
No one likes putting their money in the hands of someone they don’t trust, so checking for licenses should be the first step when looking for a casino to put your money in, whether you are gambling online or in a land-based casino.
Few international authorities can give casinos the official license to operate legally within specific requirements that guarantee the gambler’s safety and the game’s fairness. But when it comes to gambling licenses, Malta Gaming Authority is one of the most respected institutions.
MGA started in 2001 and was one of the first gaming regulation institutions that appeared on the market. At its beginnings, it operated as the Lotteries and Gaming Authority (LGA), and the first official document they released was the Lotteries and Other Games Act.
This would be the first of many laws that later came to regulate the world of gambling, turning a game easily manipulated to serve those who managed it into a fair game. The main focus of this institution was to give the gambler a fair chance and the assurance that the casinos were operating in a non-biased way.
In 2015 they rebranded as the Malta Gaming Authority and had been regulating under that name since then. When this change occurred, they also started in the online gaming industry.
Ever since, they have become the official institution to regulate online and land-based gambling activities like poker tournaments, video slots, and other virtual sports.
The MGA has multiple responsibilities as a regulatory system, but some of the primary tasks of this institution are:
The MGA website has a Register where players can find information about the licensees. There are some scam casinos that place the MGA logo at the bottom of their main page without actually holding a license. In such cases, the MGA posts updates informing players that a certain casino must not be associated with the Malta Gaming Authority.
Becoming a MGA licensee is easier said than done. The casinos need to apply for a license, pay the respective application fees. Then, the MGA either approves or rejects the application. A company that can afford a Malta license is considered financially stable and the risk of unpaid winnings is lower compared to the risk one takes when playing at an offshore casino. We, at CorrectCasinos, often remind our readers that playing at an unlicensed casino can result in a serious money loss and recommend playing at casinos that have stood the test of time.
Malta Gambling Authority Casinos must undergo a series of strict requirements to process their license. One of the reasons this institution has earned the reputation of the safest license is the hard-to-meet demands you need to fulfil to get your license as a casino.
As you can imagine, earning the most prestigious international license cannot be that easy; at the end of the day, the goal is for only the most capable and trustworthy casinos to successfully end the process and operate under this license.
Suppose you’re confident that you can reunite the requirements mentioned above. In that case, you still have to go through an exhaustive process to ensure that the casino you’re running can operate on the high-quality level of safety they aim for.
Some of the steps that each casino claiming for MGA should pass
To ensure this, the MGA has developed the “Fit and Proper Test”, which is designed to measure your ability to run an online gambling company and sticking to the requirements of a member of the MGA licensed casinos.
The main objective is to measure your capacity to run a business in this industry and ensure that you have the right strategies to deal with specific situations reliable, long-lasting company.
Part of this test is a personal interview and a deep evaluation of each applicant’s qualifications and experience. The team over at MGA directs the interview and investigation; then run various researches with law enforcement authorities to ensure that the information provided by the applicants is reliable.
They will run a rigorous analysis of the business plan that was submitted in the initial application. This is mainly to ensure that your financial plans as a company are viable and adequately planned in the short and long term.
The business plan must closely explain the services and games scheduled to be offered and a detailed breakdown of the operation costs of the entire company. From HR to marketing and distribution, the plan you submit must explain everything closely.
The amount of money that the company must be managing is very high, so achieving an MGA license is not for beginning entrepreneurs; it is directed at well-established companies that can afford the types of shared capital that the MGA requests.
Each of the applicants involved in the company must submit documents related to their identity, address, and source of income. This step is meant to guarantee the legality of the funds needed to maintain the company running.
It also ensures that there is no illegal money circling in the legal gambling industry. The MGA has strong anti-money laundering policies meant to stop the circulation of criminal money in casinos.
If you want to be a part of the new MGA licensed casinos, you must be legally located in Malta and have a registered team in the office located in this country. The requirement is that a director and a company secretary pass the “Fit and Proper Test” and the rest of MGA’s basic demands.
Among the requested personnel for the registration, many important positions must be covered to fulfil the requirements of the MGA, like Information Security, Key Compliance, Money Laundering Reporting, and others.
Before actually releasing their product into the market, the casinos applying for an MGA license must go live in a closed environment where the gambling platform will be reviewed by an external agency that will then compare these numbers to the ones provided by the company as the goal at the beginning of the process.
If the website’s results on the system review are too far from the ones offered in the initial proposal, the company must start the application process again. This would mean that the starting payment and all they’ve done so far would be re-started from cero.
Once all the steps mentioned above have been covered and verified by the MGA team, you can finally get your active license running. But before you can get the license, the total cost of the license has to be covered.
From that moment, the casinos licensed under MGA have an obligation to cover the renewal fee every year and follow the requirements previously agreed with the Malta Gaming Authority.
Earning this license isn’t easy or cheap, and the process can take up to a year, but there is a good reason why casinos looking to become big in the industry go through this strict review just to get the license. But what makes the Malta Gaming Authority license so requested and trustworthy in the gaming industry?
The fact that there are so many filters when processing this license is exactly what makes it the most respected gaming license in the world. Operating under this license means that the service provider has undergone and passed all the thorough checks and reviews that the MGA uses to test the applicants.
Owning an MGA license gives the gamblers the confidence that the casino is fair, honest, transparent, and working within the European Union laws, which is something that you want to make sure of as a player, whether you’re a newbie playing just for fun, or a serious, consistent casino gambler.
In a competitive market where gamblers come but are hard to retain, offering these high levels of protection to their money and information, along with the promise of the rigorous control mechanisms that the MGA provides, can work as a huge perk in your favour and position your casino on top of the competition.
The taxation in Malta depends on the type of game license and games that the operator offers.
Still, the gambling industry has a favourable taxing system with a maximum of €460,000 to charge.
Additionally to having access to a preferential tax rate for gaming-related companies, casinos and developers based in Malta can apply for optimised tax structures if the corporation fulfils specific requirements. With the right structure in your operations, it is possible to lower the company’s taxes to 5% of the total income of the casino.
The MGA has an active compromise with maintaining gambling as a positive part of society and understands that without the proper care, it can be detrimental to the lives of vulnerable gamblers that could get harmed in these practices. Hence, being licensed under the MGA includes constant control and monitoring over delicate matters like underage players or people struggling with gambling addictions.
The MGA has partnered up with the Ministry of Family Affairs and Social Solidarity of Malta to spread awareness of the risks of irresponsible gambling. The casinos holding this license have the compromise to act if they perceive situations that can be dangerous to the gamblers lives or their financial and mental health.
The main task of a regulating institution like the MGA is ensuring the players’ protection. For such labour, they test every applicant to the license to ensure they have their personal and financial information properly stored where it is safe from data leakage and frauds, or the license could never be issued.
The Malta Gaming Authority has four classes of licenses, with different coverage and perks on each. Let’s review them and break down what each of them works for.
Some online casinos have characteristics that can apply to more than one of these classes. In these scenarios, the MGA reserves the choice of categorising these into the class they believe to be more accurate.
At this point, you probably know that getting the most prestigious license out there is not easy at all, but it also isn’t cheap.
Just the request for the processing of the application for this license costs €2,300.
Once the application is successfully approved, the applicant must cover a license fee of €25,000 to get the actual license. After this initial one-time payment, the license holder must pay a renovation fee of €1,500 for their license.
Some other fees and taxes may apply depending on the class of the license and the federal laws.
As one of the first gaming authorities in the market, they have become one of the strongest ones. Many players look for the MGA license when trying a new online casino for its prestige; and feel unsure when it isn’t licensed under MGA, although they could have other licenses.
But both gambling veterans and newbies know that the Malta Gaming Authority is famous for its trustworthiness and consistency. Compared to other licenses in the market like Curacao or Gibraltar, the MGA license has a more complex selection stage, with detailed requirements that ensure that only the top casinos will pass their strongly safe processes.
While Malta’s security filters are strict, meticulous, and take a while to complete, Curacao’s license, for example, might be perceived as easier to get. It also will take less time to be process. Still, although this might be perceived as an advantage, the truth is, for these same reasons, it isn’t as trustable as an MGA license. Since it is technically easy to get, it isn’t taken as seriously as other licenses with more delicate admission processes, as the one Malta Gaming Authority offers.
Compared to the history and the reputation of the MGA, it is hard for other license providers to compete with what they can offer, and for this reason, the companies looking forward to entering the “big leagues” of casinos go through the exhausting process of getting an MGA license; because it is worth the wait and the cost.
Accepted Payment MethodsLuckily, the repertoire of options that the casinos working under the MGA license offer for payment methods is wide and will work for almost anyone. To find out which one is the right one for you, you just have to read a little about those that seem fit for you, and soon you’ll be good to go.
The payment options range from the most popular, like MasterCard or Visa cards and bank transfers, to virtual wallets and even cryptocurrency. All of these have pros and cons, and some of them may charge fees, depending on your country’s laws and terms and policies of the casino you choose.
Let’s look into the accepted payment options:
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These casinos are some of the most reliable and reputable casinos in the market. The process that leads to the confirmation of the licenses is strict enough to give the players the confidence that all the casinos operating under this license are fair and unbiased.
The first sign of reliability you must look for when starting in a new online casino is that they have their licensing information displayed where you can easily find it, like the bottom of the main page. You can look for the number of their license on their website and make sure it is real looking it up on the MGA’s database.
Protecting the gambler’s funds is one of the main concerns of the Malta Gaming Authority, and they constantly check on the casinos to ensure the funds on the player’s account are safely guarded.
The regulations of the Malta Gaming Authority cover all games of chance, whether they are determined by a random number generator or which the results of an event decide the results. The MGA’s experts analyse the game and decide if the game should be classified as licensable or if it should be exempt, based on whether it is a skill or a controlled-skill game.
In this article we have reviewed why MGA casinos are worthy and what it takes for an online casino to get license by the authority.
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About the author
Pettie Iv / Head of content
Pettie is really passionate about delivering the best reviews in an easy to understand language & way.
