Licensed, not listed, under review or illegal? The labels explained

A gambling brand does not have one universal legal status. The useful unit of analysis is a relationship between a legal entity or consumer brand, one jurisdiction, one product, one domain and one point in time. A sportsbook may be licensed in one market, absent from another market's current register and unable to offer online casino products in a third.

Atlas therefore avoids statements such as a brand being simply legal worldwide. A defensible record answers narrower questions: which authority granted the permission, which entity holds it, which trading name or domain is covered, what product is authorised and when the evidence was checked.

Licensed is used when a current official source provides an exact match to the relationship being described. Depending on the register, the match may use a licence number, legal entity, trading name, consumer domain or a combination of these fields. Authorised is used when the official framework uses a different legal instrument, such as an administrative authorisation or court-recognised operation.

The scope still matters. Ireland's GRAI register identifies Business-to-Consumer remote-betting licensees, so a match supports remote betting in Ireland; it does not automatically prove a remote-gaming or lottery permission. On 3 August 2026, Atlas found new exact register records for 888Sport and William Hill and added those Ireland relationships with their legal entities, licence numbers and validity dates.

Not listed is an evidence finding: the reviewed current source did not contain an exact match for the brand, entity or domain. It is deliberately narrower than unlicensed or illegal because public registers can omit domains, use unexpected corporate names, cover only one product class or update at a different cadence from the underlying licensing system.

The Kenya GRA table illustrates the distinction. SportyBet, 1xBet and BetPawa have exact 2025/26 entries. Betin and Betway were not found under those names or their expected consumer domains, so Atlas records them as not listed in that table. The result invites further verification; it is not presented as a regulator finding of illegality.

Under review is used when the evidence does not support either a positive match or a confident negative register finding. Common causes include provincial systems without a central brand directory, historical documents that no longer prove current status, a source that names only the parent company, or a public page that cannot be accessed reliably.

This label prevents uncertain legacy claims from remaining licensed merely because they were once imported into the dataset. It also prevents the opposite error: converting an incomplete search into a negative legal conclusion. The open evidence gap, source checked and next verification question should remain visible to the reader.

Restricted means the jurisdiction permits only a limited operator model, product or channel. A monopoly market may authorise one lottery or betting provider while prohibiting an open commercial online-casino market. Prohibited is reserved for a clearer rule that the relevant product or activity is not permitted in the stated scope.

Neither label should be expanded beyond the evidence. A prohibition on online casino does not automatically prohibit lotteries, land-based casinos, horse betting or every form of poker. Product-level wording is essential.

Revocation, blocking and sanctions should be attached to a dated decision from a regulator, court or other competent authority. The record must identify the target, action, jurisdiction and status of the decision. A licence surrendered at the operator's request is different from a punitive revocation, and an interim blocking order is different from a final judgment.

Illegal is the strongest label and should not be inferred from a failed website check, an absent search result or a commercial comparison page. Atlas uses it only when the legal framework or an authority decision is sufficiently clear for the exact activity being described, and it preserves provisional wording when an investigation or appeal remains open.

Grey market is widely used in industry analysis, but it does not define one stable legal model. It may describe offshore play, activity outside a local licence, revenue attributed to unlicensed domains or a regulator's estimate of channelisation. Those measures can change by product, operator, method and period. Labelling a whole country grey would hide the legal route that actually applies.

Atlas therefore keeps the country filter tied to source-backed market models: regulated, restricted, transitioning, prohibited or monopoly. When an authority publishes a grey-market estimate, the Atlas records that statistic with its period and method instead of turning it into a permanent country status.

Poland shows why the distinction matters. The Ministry of Finance's 2025 analysis estimates an online grey-market GGR share of 27.5% overall, with 22.0% for betting and 37.6% for casino games. Those H2-based estimates describe activity alongside a restricted legal structure; they do not replace the official list of authorised betting entities, the state casino monopoly or the illegal-domain register.

Start with the regulator or official market directory, not the operator's marketing page. Search the legal entity, trading name and exact consumer domain separately. Then check the product class, licence number, issue and expiry dates, and whether the record is current, suspended or in renewal.

If the source does not resolve the match, record what was searched and keep the conclusion narrow. A good result may be licensed, not listed or under review; the objective is not to force every operator into a positive or negative bucket, but to make the evidence and uncertainty useful.