Curaçao licence
An online gaming licence from the Curaçao Gaming Authority, common among crypto casinos and overhauled by a law in force since December 2024.
For years Curaçao has been one of the busiest licensing hubs for online casinos, crypto operators included. Up to 2024, most of them ran on sublicences issued under a handful of master licence holders, an arrangement that drew wide criticism for light oversight.
The 2024 reform
On 24 December 2024 the National Ordinance on Games of Chance, usually called LOK after its Dutch initials, took effect. It scrapped master licences and sublicences in favour of licences issued directly by the Curaçao Gaming Authority (CGA). Since then the CGA has published policies on complaints, responsible gaming and alternative dispute resolution.
Practical meaning for you
- Holding a Curaçao licence does not let a casino accept players from a jurisdiction that requires a local licence, Ontario and Alberta being two examples.
- There is now a formal complaints and ADR channel via the CGA, though its effectiveness has yet to be proven.
- Match the licence number shown on the site against the CGA's own records.
How it scores with us
We treat a licence as a floor, never a guarantee. It feeds the security and licensing part of our rating, next to the evidence from our own payout tests.