UKGC licensed Casinos

The Mission of the UKGC

The Great Britain Gambling Commission puts regulations in place and will control online gambling either by itself or by mandating third-party agencies to ensure:

• The protection of underage people
• Proper licensing of online betting activities
• Monitoring of UKGC licensed casinos
• Fairness and reliability of all games available on the UK market
• Players’ safety, which includes privacy and assets protection
• The good advertisement of Responsible Gambling

How Much Does a UKGC Licence Cost?

The Great Britain Gambling Authority delivers three types of licences: operating licences, personal functional licences and premise licences. An online casino needs an operating licence. This licence can be non-remote, remote or ancillary.

Betting licence activities

Depending on the services the online casino wants to offer, he’ll need the following betting licences:

UKGC Remote general betting standard real events licence pricing

This licence allows the casino to provide a remote facility to consumers in Britain, i.e. a website. It applies, as an annual fee, if the gross gambling yield from telephone betting is £550,000 or more.

When the application is accepted, the Commission will take an annual fee.

Remote general betting standard virtual events licence cost

This licence allows the providing of facilities for remote (online) gambling to consumers in Britain. It only allows the provision of facilities for betting on virtual races, competitions or other events or processes, other than a game of chance, by means of remote communication. It’s divided into categories for application:

Once the application is accepted, the Commission will collect annual fees as follow:

Remote betting host real events licence

This licence allows online casinos to offer sports betting and any other activity regarding real events. Application fees apply as follows:

Remote betting host real events licence

This licence allows online casinos to offer sports betting and any other activity regarding real events. Application fees apply as follows:

If the UKGC grants licence, fees need to be paid annually.

Remote betting host virtual events licence

This licence concerns betting on virtual events. These are the application fees:

Annual fees will also be applied once the licence is granted.

Remote pool betting licence

This licence allows bringing several betting parties together, and it’s essential if the casino offers horse racing bets, for example.

On the same model as the previous licences, there is an annual fee applied.

An online casino doesn’t necessarily need all of these licences, but if they want to diversify their catalogue, they have to apply for the concerned licences, or they risk sanctions from the Gambling Commission.

Recently issued UGKC casino licenses

List of online casinos that recently got licensed by the UKGC.

Which Countries Can The UKGC licence Cover?

UKGC licensed casinos can be based on the UK territory or offshore. What matters is that they provide a gambling service to the residents of the country. Any online casino that offers a gambling platform for UK residents must be properly licensed and follow the rules imposed by the UKGC.

This is why you may encounter casinos with several licences. These casinos operate in several countries, and if some countries accept foreign gaming commission licences, this is not the case in Great Britain.

However, some foreign countries that don’t have their own Gambling institution can sometimes accept online casinos to operate on their territory with a Great Britain Gambling Commission licence but may ask them to also comply with their local legislation.

Most Popular Payment Methods Within the Licence

UKGC licensed casinos can provide payment methods based on certain criteria.

• The payment method must comply with the Money Laundering Regulation of 2007.
• Have a clear organisational structure, and be transparent.
• Offer procedures to identify, manage, monitor and report any risks it might experience
• Internal control mechanisms such as a sound administrative system, risk management and accounting procedures.
• Offers measures to guarantee a safeguarding payment service.

These are some of the basic elements a payment must provide. In Great Britain Gambling Commission casinos, the most popular methods that follow these guidelines are credit cards like Visa or Mastercard and bank transfers for the most traditional methods. However, new methods have appeared like Paysafecard and e-wallets like ecoPayz, Skrill or Neteller.

These e-wallets are popular because of the rise of Cryptocurrencies. Due to their decentralised nature and reinforced control thanks to the blockchain, new UKGC licensed casinos now accept payments directly in Bitcoin or Litecoin, for instance, without having to resort to an e-wallet. Some services like Trustly are also accepted in the UK for casinos resorting to the Pay N Play business model. This new model allows players to play, deposit and withdraw without having to go through sending documents to fulfil the KYC policy. The documents needed are now communicated to the casino by the bank itself to spare days of waiting on the player’s part.

Conclusion

It seems that the UKGC is a doer, not just a talker, and it puts heavy emphasis on players’ safety. That’s why customers can visit the UKGC site and to check if a casino actually has a UK license and whether it has been previously suspended. We recommend you to take advantage of that option and make sure you play at casinos that have a good reputation across the online gambling community.

Read also:

UK Casinos not on GAMSTOP

Other gambling licenses

UKGC is probably one of the most-prestigious license-issuer, however because of GAMSTOP and other restrictions UK Players might want to play at foreign casinos, licensed by other authorities.