Gambling regulators worldwide: official registers for 74 markets

The directory is a starting point for a reproducible licence check. It connects each Atlas market to the authority responsible for gambling oversight and, where available, to the authority’s public register of licensed businesses, approved brands or permitted domains.

It is designed for researchers, compliance teams, journalists and players who need to move beyond a licence logo. The useful question is not simply “is this operator licensed?” but “which legal entity, domain and product is authorised for this jurisdiction, and what does the current official record show?”

Online gambling permission is granted locally. A business may hold an operating licence in Great Britain, appear on a permitted-provider list in Germany and have no matching authorisation in another country. Even within one group, different legal entities can operate different brands and domains.

The Atlas therefore records operator-market relationships rather than assigning one worldwide legal label to a brand. This avoids turning a licence from one jurisdiction into an unsupported global claim.

Begin with the player’s location and the exact website domain. Search the authority’s register for the legal business name, trading name and domain where those fields are available. Then open the licence record and confirm that its status is current and that the permitted activities cover the relevant product.

An open licensing market may publish a searchable list of licensed businesses. A monopoly market may instead identify one authorised public or domestic provider. Restricted and transitioning markets can publish legislation, enforcement notices or future licensing information without maintaining an active commercial register.

Those models are not interchangeable. The absence of a brand from an open-market register can support a “not listed” finding for that source and date. It should not automatically be converted into a universal finding of illegality.

A current match can establish that a named entity or domain appears in the authority’s official data with a stated licence status. It does not prove that every website using the brand is covered, that every product is authorised or that the permission applies outside the authority’s territory.

Registers can also contain historical, expired, suspended or revoked records. Read the status field and any regulatory-action links instead of treating search visibility as proof of an active permission.

Each country profile carries a review date and separates the regulator website from the most useful public register. Atlas research also preserves the source used for operator-market records, allowing a reader to reproduce the check.

High-change markets and enforcement records require shorter review cycles. Stable methodology pages can age more slowly, but their outbound register links are still checked as part of the editorial refresh queue.

Use the regulator’s live register as the strongest source for a current permission. If there is no searchable register, use an official authority list, downloadable dataset or government publication. Legislation explains the framework but may not identify the businesses currently permitted to operate.

Operator websites, affiliate lists and news coverage can help discover a claim, but they should not replace the authority record. Atlas keeps those discovery signals separate from the primary evidence used for a status.

The most common mistake is counting register entries as consumer brands. One business can have several trading names, domains or licences, while one brand can be operated by different group companies in different markets.

Another mistake is comparing country totals without accounting for market structure. A register with thousands of business records and a monopoly market naming one provider are answering different regulatory questions. The useful comparison is whether the official source supports the exact local claim being tested.