New Non GamStop Casinos and the Reality of Licensing

A new non GamStop casino is a site with no Great Britain licence, so it cannot join the GamStop self-exclusion scheme. Its licence comes from somewhere else — Curaçao, Anjouan or nowhere at all. Offshore sites owe UK players no UK protection, and a complaint against one has no British regulator behind it.

Every year a fresh crop of them arrives, each promising the one thing a British-licensed site cannot offer: an account for someone who has self-excluded. That is the whole commercial proposition, and everything else — the licence, the game suppliers, the bonus terms, the payment methods — is arranged around it. I have covered this trade long enough to know that "new" is doing an enormous amount of work in the phrase. A new domain is not a new operator. Behind the logo there is usually a licence bought for a fixed fee, a platform rented from a supplier that serves hundreds of near-identical brands, and a support desk in a timezone several hours away from yours.

The cluster of searches that leads people to this page — new non gamstop casino, brand new non gamstop casinos, new non gamstop casinos uk — is really one question asked three ways: what is different about the latest arrivals? The honest answer is: very little that matters legally, and rather a lot that matters practically. A site that launches this month has no track record, which is precisely when you can learn the most by reading its terms before you learn it from its behaviour.

That framing sets the angle of this page. I am less interested in whether a new offshore site pays quickly — anyone can pay quickly for a few months — than in where a complaint can go and who decides it. That question has a verifiable answer, and it is the fastest way to tell a serious operation from a rented front end.

Offshore sites are not licensed in Great Britain. UK protections do not apply to them — no GamStop, no statutory complaint route, no access to the Financial Ombudsman or the Gambling Commission's enforcement. If gambling is causing harm, the National Gambling Helpline is free on 0808 8020 133, 24 hours a day. And to be blunt about the thing that gets marketed hardest: self-exclusion is not something a new site can unlock for anyone. A GamStop exclusion holds for its full term and then stays in place until the person contacts GamStop to remove it. An offshore account does not end it.

What Is Actually New About a New Non GamStop Casino?

Not the licence. That is the part buyers get wrong. When a Curaçao licence changes hands or a new domain appears, the paperwork underneath is often years old.

Curaçao is the clearest case because it has just been rebuilt from the inside. The National Ordinance on Games of Chance, known as the LOK, took effect on 24 December 2024 and made the Curaçao Gaming Authority the direct licensing and supervisory authority. The old master-licence and sub-licence model is finished, and the private master licensors can no longer grant new Curaçao gaming licences. Licensing activity ceased for the four former master licensors on separate dates: Gaming Curaçao (365/JAZ) on 18 August 2024, Curaçao eGaming (1668/JAZ) on 1 October 2024, a former master licensor (8048/JAZ) on 1 November 2024 and Curaçao Interactive Licensing (5536/JAZ) on 31 January 2025.

The practical consequence is a neat little trap. The legacy "orange" sub-licence certificates of operation ended on 15 October 2025, and the CGA says a historic /JAZ number or legacy seal must not be treated as independent proof that an operator currently holds a valid licence. New sites are fond of those old numbers, because they are cheap to display and impossible for most players to check.

Fees explain why the model suits launching at volume. A Curaçao B2C application fee is a one-time, non-refundable EUR 4,592, plus EUR 150 per ultimate beneficial owner and EUR 150 per qualified interest holder, with total annual B2C fees of EUR 47,450 split between a EUR 24,490 licence fee to the National Treasury and a EUR 22,960 supervisory fee to the CGA. This is a modest sum for a business that will take deposits around the clock. Malta's B2C licence requires a EUR 5,000 application fee, a EUR 25,000 annual licence fee and share capital of EUR 100,000 for the main licence types — but a Maltese licence does not cover Great Britain either, which is the point that always gets lost.

Then there is Costa Rica, which does not operate a comprehensive gambling licensing regime at all. The "data processing license" sometimes cited in the trade is not a licence in the strict legal sense, and the country's Legislative Assembly rejected Bill No. 25,057 in early 2026 — the bill that would have introduced mandatory licensing.

So what is new about a new site? Usually the front end, the affiliate contracts and the welcome offer. Occasionally the licence. Very rarely the operator.

Brand New Non GamStop Casinos in the Curaçao Reform

The reform has entered its awkward phase, and a brand-new site arriving in 2026 is arriving in the middle of it.

Operators holding a valid licence when the LOK came into force received a six-month provisional licence by operation of law, due to expire on 24 June 2025. The CGA extended those provisional licences by a further six months, to 24 December 2025, on the same conditions, and said operators had to be fully compliant with the LOK by the end of that second period to qualify for a full licence. Supplier licensing and supplier registration then become fully mandatory and enforceable from 24 December 2026, the end of a two-year transitional period. From that date, suppliers established outside Curaçao providing critical services or goods to Curaçao licence holders must register with the CGA, though they do not need a Curaçao supplier licence.

That is a lot of moving furniture, and it produces a genuine verification problem. The CGA announced on 7 October 2026 that its previous online gaming portal would not return to service, that this does not affect the validity of existing licences or operator obligations, and that it is working on an alternative mechanism for verifying CGA-licensed domains because the previous digital licence seal may be affected by the transition.

What should a seal look like while this is going on? The CGA issues two, and they are not interchangeable. The Certificate of Operation Seal goes only to B2C operators and only for an approved and registered player-facing domain. The License Certificate Seal is available to B2B and B2C entities and is not domain-specific. Clicking a Certificate of Operation Seal must redirect to cert.cga.cw, and if the seal differs in design, colour or format, the website is not authorised by the CGA. If the certificate behind the seal shows a different domain name from the one being accessed, the site is displaying somebody else's certificate and should be treated as unauthorised or fraudulent.

Three checks a careful reader can make in five minutes, then. Does the seal redirect where it should? Does the domain on the certificate match the domain in the address bar? And is the seal a Certificate of Operation rather than a general licence certificate being passed off as one? Think of it as checking a passport number against the passport.

New Non GamStop Casinos UK Players Meet Through Anjouan

Anjouan is where a great many recent arrivals hang their licence, and the story there is stranger than the Curaçao one.

Internet gaming in Anjouan is regulated under the laws of the Autonomous Island of Anjouan, a constituent territory of the Union of the Comoros, on a framework built from legislation adopted in 2005, including the Anjouan Computer Gaming Licensing Act. The Anjouan Gaming Authority names the Anjouan Offshore Financial Authority as the competent regulatory authority, with Anjouan Licensing Services Inc. as the sole authorised licence administrator and official representative of the Anjouan Gaming Board. The published fee schedule is EUR 17,828 for B2C licence issuance, one-time, and EUR 17,828 for annual renewal, identical for B2B, with EUR 500 per additional domain or URL. Anjouan Gaming states that its licences contain no territorial restrictions under Anjouan law, while licence holders must comply with all applicable laws in the jurisdictions where they operate.

The regulator itself said something in June that the affiliate pages have not caught up with. Anjouan Gaming stated on 10 June 2026 that "An Anjouan Internet Gaming Licence is not, and has never been presented as, a universal authorisation to operate in every country in the world", adding that no licensing authority can exempt an operator from local law where local authorisation is required. Read that twice. It is the regulator declining to stand behind the impression its own licensees create.

An ABC News investigation published on 31 December 2025 reported that Anjouan Licensing Services claims to have issued more than 1,300 gambling licences at around EUR 17,000 per licence per year, and that Comoros financial intelligence officials described Anjouan Corporate Services as operating illegally; a former attorney-general of the Comoros was reported as calling Anjouan Licensing Services, which sells the licences, "an illegal entity", and the investigation said the AOFA was stripped of its status as a recognised regulator by Comorian banking laws passed in 2013 and 2015. Anjouan Gaming maintains that an independent legal opinion issued on 19 September 2024 and reconfirmed in February 2026 by a law firm regulated in England and Wales and Quebec, Canada, confirms the AOFA is the lawful regulatory authority and that licences under the 2005 Act are legally valid — a statement made by a licensee, and one I would treat with the caution it invites.

Anjouan does publish standards: player funds segregated from operational funds, random number generators certified by an approved independent testing facility, AML and age-verification controls. It also has a verification framework, and this is the useful part — licence certificates carry a unique licence number and a QR verification code linking to the public register, and certificates that cannot be verified through the register should not be relied upon as evidence of licensing status.

That is the whole test in one sentence, and it is where most claims collapse.

Curaçao licence terms, at a glance

The two figures worth comparing are the EUR 4,592 and the EUR 17,828. Neither is large. Neither tells you anything about how the site will behave when a withdrawal is requested at two in the morning.

Where a Complaint Goes, and Who Decides It

This is the section I would read first if I were the suspicious type, and the angle this page exists to take.

On a British-licensed site the route is fixed by the licence itself. LCCP social responsibility code provision 6.1.1 requires licensees to have arrangements for customers to refer any dispute to an ADR entity free of charge if it is not resolved to satisfaction within eight weeks of receipt of the complaint, and the consumer must have gone through the operator's own complaints procedure first — the operator may issue a "deadlock letter" confirming the customer can escalate. Commission guidance adds that licence holders should allow complaints to be raised for at least six months from the incident, should acknowledge a complaint within 24 hours where they offer 24-hour gambling facilities, and must complete the entire process including internal escalation within eight weeks of first receipt. ADR providers must be ones the Commission has approved, and licensed operators may use only those.

The record of what happens next is public. eCOGRA's Great Britain Gambling Commission ADR report for 1 October 2024 to 30 September 2025 records 911 disputes received, of which "Deposits & Withdrawals" accounted for 150 valid disputes, an average of 31 days to resolve domestic disputes, and 17.8 per cent of completed disputes ruled in favour of the consumer against 82.2 per cent for the operator. IBAS, the gambling-specialist service, recorded 3,721 domestic disputes in 2024-25, of which 217 were Banking/Financial Disputes, with an average completion time of 20 days for domestic disputes and 100 per cent operator compliance with decisions in the consumer's favour in both 2023-24 and 2024-25. Note that last figure. It is the single most useful number on this page, because it measures whether the losing party actually pays up.

Now the offshore version. Anjouan Gaming requires licensees to designate an Authority-approved ADR provider and to list its name and contact details in player-facing terms, with operators expected to resolve complaints within 30 days before a player may escalate. The ADR providers currently approved by Anjouan Gaming are EGIS ADR, Axion ADR, iGaming ADR and a third-party adjudicator Kahnawà:ke employs a full-time Dispute Resolution Officer, requires a licensee's relationship with players to be contractual and free of terms that are unfair or unreasonable, and requires sites to let a player set limits including zero.

And the cost of a decision going the wrong way offshore is not symmetrical with the UK. Under Kahnawake rules, a player who breaches a self-exclusion prohibition forfeits any funds deposited or won to a third-party charity selected by the Commission. That is a real clause in a real rulebook, and it illustrates the difference between a regulator whose decisions bind by force of licence renewal and one whose decisions bind because the operator chooses to comply.

The Gambling Commission is a regulator and not an ombudsman, so it cannot resolve individual gambling complaints or help consumers get their money back. It records complaints and typically refers disputes to an independent third party. For an offshore site, the Commission has no jurisdiction at all — its remit covers gambling websites which trade or advertise to customers in Great Britain, and those must hold a Commission licence. The MGA, for its part, publishes a list of Unauthorised URLs, declaring it has no connection with those domains and that any reference to the MGA or a Maltese licence on them is false and misleading, with the most recent entries carrying notice dates of 30 October 2026. Useful reading if a new site's footer name-drops a regulator.

One more thing about that awareness-of-the-name issue, since it is genuinely how people search. The scheme is often typed "gamestop", because the word "game" suggests itself. It is GamStop, and the name matters here only because a site advertising itself as "non gamstop" is advertising precisely the gap in coverage.

Bonus Terms and How New Sites Hide Costs

A new site has no reputation to protect, so the terms are the reputation. Read them before the games.

From 19 January 2026, UK-licensed operators must not apply wagering requirements over a maximum of 10 times — the Commission chose a cap over an outright ban, saying the limit "will take out extreme levels as some licensees currently apply up to 60 times wagering requirements". The same rules ban mixed-product promotions requiring two or more types of gambling. Offshore sites are bound by none of it.

What the published terms of offshore operators actually say is instructive. One states that casino bonus amounts are subject to a 25× wagering requirement before winnings derived from them may be withdrawn, with a published contribution chart giving slots and specialty games 100 per cent, table games 20 per cent, video poker and blackjack 10 per cent, roulette and baccarat 5 per cent, and craps, Hot Drop Jackpots and live dealer games 0 per cent. Another states that for deposit bonuses the required bet amount equals the bonus multiplied by the wager, and that "the deposit amount itself is not included in the wagering calculation". A third reserves the right to limit the amount withdrawable from winnings generated with bonus funds to 300 per cent of the credited bonus amount, with any excess voided.

Maximum bet rules are where the sting usually lands. One published term caps the maximum bet while wagering a bonus at €5 for regular players and €10 for VIP players, and rejects any bet above the limit. Another says all bonuses carry a max bet restriction relative to the deposit, with the casino maximum at 20 per cent of the deposited amount, and that failure to adhere to it "may result in account closure, forfeit of the Bonus, and any winnings generated during the wagering of the Bonus". A €5 bet placed in the middle of a bonus, unnoticed, can void the lot.

Three habits worth acquiring before any of this matters. First, find the maximum cashout clause and read the percentage, not the headline. Second, find the maximum bet while wagering and note whether the figure is expressed in euros or in rupees converted badly. Third, look for terms giving the operator sole discretion "at their own discretion to close accounts or forfeit winnings" — the wording that drew a £170,000 fine for one UK-licensed operator in July 2025, and which offshore has no equivalent penalty for.

Five Signs an Offshore Operator Can Be Trusted

Trust here is a relative term. No offshore site can offer UK protections, so what follows is a test of seriousness, not of safety.

Who actually holds the licence

Check the footer against a public register, not against a logo. A Curaçao Certificate of Operation Seal must redirect to cert.cga.cw, and the certificate behind it must show the domain being accessed. An Anjouan certificate must carry a unique licence number and a QR code resolving through the public register. If neither resolves, the claim is not verifiable and should be treated as absent. Malta's Unauthorised URLs list is a quick cross-check when a Maltese licence is claimed.

Where a complaint can genuinely go

Look for a named ADR provider with contact details in the terms, not just an email address. Anjouan requires licensees to designate an approved provider and list it — EGIS ADR, Axion ADR, iGaming ADR and a third-party adjudicator are the approved four — with complaints expected to be resolved within 30 days before escalation. A site that offers only an internal support form and no external adjudicator has told you how a dispute ends.

The cashout cap and the maximum bet

Read both figures and write them down. A cap expressed as a percentage of the bonus, and a maximum bet while wagering, are the two clauses that decide how much of a win a player keeps. UK operators may not impose any maximum limit on the amount a consumer may withdraw from their deposit balance; offshore, the cap is whatever the terms say it is. If the numbers are unstated or "at management's discretion", that is the answer.

Customer fund protection and how it is described

Ask directly whether player funds are held separately and what happens on insolvency. Anjouan's published standards require operators to segregate player funds from operational funds. That is a real commitment, but on its own it is not a guarantee — UK guidance is explicit that keeping customer funds in a separate client account does not mean customers get their money back if the operator becomes insolvent, and gambling businesses are legally allowed to hold customers' money in overseas bank accounts. A segregated account is a good sign; a promise of safety is not.

Whether the terms admit the obvious

The most honest document an offshore site can publish is one that stops pretending. Anjouan Gaming's own June statement that its licence is "not, and has never been presented as, a universal authorisation to operate in every country in the world" is the kind of admission I trust more than any badge on a homepage. Consistent version numbers and dated updates do the same work — terms last updated on a stated date, with the number visible, suggest somebody is actually maintaining the paperwork.

How to Check a New Site Before Using It

Six steps, all of them lawful and none of them exotic.

1. Verify the licence against the register, not the badge. Follow the seal redirect to cert.cga.cw and confirm the certificate domain matches the site; or scan the Anjouan QR code and confirm the licence number resolves. Reason: a seal that does not verify is decoration, and the CGA's own portal has been offline since 7 October 2026, so redirect behaviour is now the primary test.
2. Find the named ADR provider in the terms. Note the provider and whether it is on the relevant regulator's approved list. Reason: this is the only route that survives a dispute, and Anjouan's approved list is short enough to memorise — EGIS ADR, Axion ADR, iGaming ADR and a third-party adjudicator
3. Map the complaint timeline before there is a complaint. Check how long the site allows a complaint to be raised and how long it takes to answer. Reason: UK guidance expects complaints to be accepted for at least six months and the full process completed within eight weeks; if the offshore version offers a fortnight, the site has chosen its own clock.
4. Read the maximum cashout and maximum bet clauses together. Record the percentage and the currency of the bet limit. Reason: a €5 maximum bet while wagering and a 300 per cent cashout cap interact, and the interaction is what determines whether a win survives.
5. Check the payment methods for reversibility and delay. Look for a stated withdrawal processing period, any processing fee, and whether the method can be reversed. Reason: UK rules banned reverse withdrawals outright in October 2021, and the Commission's own data covering June to September 2024 records 44.2 million withdrawals at large online operators, of which 96.3 per cent cleared automatically and 3.5 per cent within 24 hours. Offshore, processing time is a term of the contract, not a regulatory requirement.
6. Write down the exit before the entry. Note what the terms say about account closure, dormancy and fund confiscation, and keep a copy of the terms as they stood on the day of the deposit. Reason: terms change, and a dated copy is the only evidence of what was agreed.

Why the Newest Arrivals Get the Most Attention

The enforcement numbers explain the appetite. Over the monitored period from May 2024 to July 2025, just over 1,000 unique illegal gambling websites were accessed by consumers in Great Britain, and the number identified through the Commission's affiliate-page method rose from 364 in May 2024 to 535 in July 2025, with crypto-casino search terms added to the methodology in December 2024. The Commission's illegal gambling dashboard recorded 586 illegal gambling websites accessible to GB consumers identified in September 2026 — 4 per cent less than the previous three-month average but 4 per cent more than September 2025.

The disruption effort is real and it is measured. Since April 2024 the Illegal Markets team has issued 3,140 cease and desist and disruption notices — 2,032 C&Ds, 774 registrar referrals, 402 host referrals and 3 payment provider referrals — referred 447,778 Bing and Google URLs and secured 287,961 URL removals. Across 160 illegal gambling websites for which web traffic data existed, there was an average 32 per cent decrease in engagement after disruption activity. By method, registrar blocks and website suspensions produced the largest average fall, at 91 per cent each, ahead of GEO IP blocking at 60 per cent, Bing removal at 52 per cent, Google removal at 30 per cent and Facebook removal at 8 per cent. In July to September 2026 alone it referred 1,835 websites and issued 546 cease and desist notices.

So the churn has an obvious cause: sites are removed and replaced. A "brand new" non GamStop casino is sometimes a genuinely new business and sometimes the same operation on its fourth domain in eighteen months, because the previous three were blocked. The industry warning notice the Commission issued on 20 January 2025 is worth reading in that light — it drew attention to casino games supplied by licensed operators appearing on unlicensed websites available to GB consumers, and noted that such sites often target customers who have self-excluded via GamStop and may have inadequate social responsibility and AML controls.

Scale, for context: total Great Britain gambling industry gross gambling yield was £17.5 billion in the year April 2025 to March 2026, up 4.4 per cent, with the remote casino, betting and bingo sector at £8.3 billion. Estimates of the illegal share diverge wildly by method. The Commission's own analysis published 5 November 2026 estimates that, across the whole population including non-gamblers, 0.6 per cent of respondents engaged with illegal gambling websites in the past four weeks and a further 0.4 per cent in the past 12 months, while among those who had gambled online in the past four weeks the estimate is 2.5 per cent, with an additional 1.5 per cent in the past 12 months. Market-intelligence firm H2 Gambling Capital puts the amount staked with illegal operators in the UK at £16.6 billion in 2025, up from about £5 billion in 2019, with the proportion of gambling happening legally falling from 97 per cent to 92 per cent. A study by Frontier Economics for the Betting and Gaming Council conservatively estimated £2.7 billion staked annually online on the black market, equal to 2.1 per cent of the £128 billion staked with GB regulated remote casino, betting and bingo operators, involving 1.5 million Brits. Treat the spread between those figures as a warning about the reliability of all of them.

Verification, and Why It Happens at the Wrong Moment

The single thing this topic turns on is identity verification, because it is where a new offshore site either behaves like an operator or behaves like a trap.

In the UK the sequence is prescribed. Licence Condition 17 was introduced on 7 May 2019 and requires licensees to obtain and verify information establishing a customer's identity before that customer is permitted to gamble, and the Commission expects identity and age checks to be brought forward to before a customer deposits or stakes. Companies can often verify by matching the account against databases such as credit reference agencies and the electoral roll, in which case no documents are needed. Documents a business can ask for include passports, driving licences and household bills, and a selfie may be requested where fraudulent activity such as identity theft is suspected. If verification is electronic it may be instant; if documents are requested it may take longer.

The first-time experience on a well-run site is therefore dull: register, deposit, play, withdraw, and the identity check has already happened invisibly through a database. Later it can resurface, because customer due diligence is ongoing and may need updating when circumstances or personal details change. In remote casinos, identification and verification are required when a customer deposits funds to take part in remote gambling, or withdraws such funds or winnings, amounting to €2,000 or more, and the threshold applies both to a single transaction and to transactions that "appear to be linked" — linked, for instance, where they form part of the customer's overall activity during a single logged-on period.

Where the rules bite hardest is a request for documents at the moment of withdrawal. Licence Condition 17.1.1 states that a customer's withdrawal request must not result in a requirement for additional information if the licensee could reasonably have requested that information earlier, and where a business delays a withdrawal because of insufficient ID it may be in breach of Licence Condition 17 and may be subject to regulatory action. Over a quarter of complaints reaching the Commission's Contact Centre concern identity verification, and it is one of the most common dispute types referred to ADR providers. The Commission has also expressed concern about operators using "fuzzy matching" via third-party verification providers and onboarding customers on partial or equivocal verification — and noted that onboarding with a middle name instead of a forename can create mismatches with records held elsewhere, such as GamStop, undermining the effectiveness of self-exclusion.

The warning signs are consistent. A request for documents only on withdrawal, when the same documents were never mentioned at deposit. Terms that let the site confiscate a deposit balance because identity verification failed — the CMA's view is that consumers are legally entitled to deposited money, winnings from money deposited and gambled, and bonus winnings where conditions are met, and UK guidance prohibits confiscation on that basis. A verification process with no stated outcome and no stated timescale. And a sourcing request that arrives as a demand rather than an explanation.

Offshore, this is where newness costs the most. The Commission's 2026 risk assessment rates the remote casino sector as high risk for money laundering and reports an increase in the scale and sophistication of attempts to bypass customer due diligence checks using false documentation, deepfake videos and face swaps generated by AI. A site with a thin compliance function, a rented licence and a €5,000-per-year fee structure has every incentive to verify late and every excuse to hold funds when it does.

Where Help Actually Comes From

The help bodies are British, free, and reachable without a licence check.

The National Gambling Helpline is operated by GamCare on 0808 8020 133, 24 hours a day, every day of the year, and the same number reaches live chat and WhatsApp. For callers in Wales the number given is 0808 2819 265, alongside 0808 8020 133 for England and Scotland. It is not a crisis line, and staff cannot transfer callers at immediate risk of harm; they follow their own safeguarding procedures instead. BeGambleAware, the public-facing brand of the charity GambleAware, directs people to the same helpline or to its online chat.

Treatment is now funded by the statutory levy, introduced by the Gambling Levy Regulations 2025 and commenced on 6 April 2025, which replaced voluntary industry contributions at 1.1 per cent of previous-year gross gambling yield for online operators. In its first year it raised just under £120 million, ringfenced solely for research, prevention and treatment of gambling-related harm, split 50 per cent to treatment, 20 per cent to research and 30 per cent to prevention. From 1 April 2026 NHS England took commissioning responsibility for gambling-harms treatment in England.

Beyond the helpline there is GamFam, a registered charity (No. 1191139) set up by people affected by the gambling of family and friends, delivering structured five-stage peer support through GRA5P. Gamblers Anonymous England, Wales and Ulster can be reached on 0330 094 0322 and runs around 250 meeting locations with no appointment needed, with its line open 7:30am to 10:30pm daily. Gam-Anon UK & Ireland supports family and friends whether or not the gambler attends GA. The NHS National Gambling Clinic at 69 Warwick Road, London SW5 9HB, telephone 020 7381 7722, accepts self-referrals and professional referrals for young people aged 13 to 18 from anywhere in England, and for adults living in Greater London and the South East. Citizens Advice offers free confidential advice on debt, and Citizens Advice Scotland runs a gambling support service on 0800 328 1131, Monday to Friday, 10am to 3pm.

Blocking tools are worth naming as well, since they work independently of any licence. GamStop signposts Gamban and BetBlocker as software for phones, tablets and computers. BetBlocker states it blocks over 1,368,000 gambling websites and 3,100 apps, requires no registration and is free worldwide. Gamban blocks licensed and unlicensed sites and designs its protection to be as difficult to remove as possible; its free UK licence scheme, TalkBanStop, ended on 31 March 2026, and it is free for residents of Wales but costs £4.99 per month or £29.99 per year in England and Scotland after a 7-day trial. Banks offering gambling blocks, according to the Commission's list last updated 16 October 2026, include Bank of Scotland, Barclays, Halifax, HSBC, Lloyds Bank, MBNA, Monzo, NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and Starling, applied at card level, with most using a 48-hour or 72-hour cooling-off before gambling transactions are allowed again.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are new non GamStop casinos legal in the UK?

It is the operator, not the player, that breaks the law. Section 33 of the Gambling Act 2005 makes it an offence for a person to provide facilities for gambling without an operating licence, and it is immaterial whether the facilities are provided wholly or partly by remote communication, and whether inside or outside the UK. The Commission states plainly that it is illegal for anyone to offer commercial gambling services to consumers in Great Britain without a Commission licence, including where the operator holds a licence in another jurisdiction. The player commits no offence by holding an account.

What does GamStop actually block, and what does it not?

GamStop Online blocks a person from signing up for or using online accounts with gambling companies licensed in Great Britain. It cannot prevent access to gambling services run by organisations that do not participate in the scheme. Under licence condition Social Responsibility Code Provision 3.5.5 — in force since 31 March 2020 — all online operators must participate as a condition of their Gambling Commission licence, and an operator must check its entire customer base for registrations at least every 24 hours. Offshore sites hold no such licence and are not connected to the scheme.

How long does a GamStop exclusion last, and can it be lifted early?

Registration blocks for 6 months, 1 year, 5 years or 5 years with auto-renewal, and signing up takes minutes although the block can take up to 24 hours to become effective. Once registered, you cannot cancel during the exclusion period; the exclusion stays in place after the chosen period ends unless you contact GamStop to remove it. Under the terms of use, auto-renewal may only be turned off during the last six months of a five-year period, and it continues for up to four further five-year periods.

How many people are on the register, and where does the trend point?

GamStop had 561,983 active exclusions at the end of 2025, having recorded 117,756 new registrations during that year. It reported a 16 per cent year-on-year increase in registrations in the first half of 2026, with May 2026 setting a monthly record of 12,236 sign-ups. As of July 2026 it reported 614,738 consumers currently on the register, of whom more than one in two had opted for the maximum five-year exclusion, while across all age groups only one in four had self-excluded for six months.

What happens if I have a dispute with an offshore site?

There is no UK route. The Commission is a regulator and not an ombudsman, so it cannot resolve individual complaints or help consumers get their money back, and its remit covers only websites that hold a Commission licence. The realistic options are the ADR provider named in the site's terms — Anjouan requires licensees to designate an approved one, currently EGIS ADR, Axion ADR, iGaming ADR or a third-party adjudicator, with complaints expected to be resolved within 30 days before escalation — or a court action under whatever jurisdiction the contract names.

Do offshore sites ever pay out without argument?

Some do, and the honest framing is that speed here is a business decision rather than a protected right. Operators cannot be relied on by rule: the Commission's data covering June to September 2024 records 44.2 million withdrawals at large online operators, of which 96.3 per cent cleared automatically and 3.5 per cent within 24 hours. That is a UK figure, produced under a licence regime with a complaints system behind it. Offshore, the schedule sits in the terms, along with any processing fee and any maximum cashout clause. Read them before the first deposit.

The Newest Badge, the Oldest Questions

A new non GamStop casino is a marketing event wrapped around a licence that is rarely new at all, and the questions that matter are the ones a logo cannot answer: who grants the licence, whether the seal verifies, what the cashout cap says, and which named adjudicator decides a dispute when the site and the player disagree. The Gambling Commission's figures on the illegal market — 586 sites identified in September 2026, 1,835 websites referred to search engines in a single quarter, and an average 32 per cent fall in engagement across 160 illegal sites after disruption — describe a churn that guarantees next year will bring another crop of "brand new" arrivals with the same old paperwork. Nothing on this page should be read as advice about anyone's own gambling. Offshore sites are not licensed in Great Britain and UK protections do not apply, and if gambling is causing harm the National Gambling Helpline is free on 0808 8020 133, day or night. One last number to sit with: the Curaçao B2C application fee is EUR 4,592, and the annual cost of the licence is EUR 47,450 — less than the cost of a modest company car, for a business that will hold other people's money.

Figures verified against the fact sheet as of 13.11.2026.