Curaçao gambling licence: the 2024 reform and what comes next

For most of the last twenty years, "licensed in Curaçao" was the standard line at the bottom of an offshore casino. It still appears on many of the big crypto names we review, including Stake, Duelbits, BetFury and Cloudbet. But the licence behind that line changed in December 2024, and the system is still settling. This page covers how it works now, how to check a number and how we read its future.

What the Curaçao licence is

Curaçao is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the southern Caribbean. Online gambling there is now regulated by the Curaçao Gaming Authority (CGA), the body formerly known as the Curaçao Gaming Control Board. It licenses B2C operators and B2B suppliers, regulates land-based casinos and supervises the gaming sector for anti-money laundering.

The legal basis is the Landsverordening op de kansspelen (LOK), the National Ordinance on Games of Chance, which took effect on 24 December 2024. It replaced the old offshore gaming law and, with it, the master licence system. Our glossary has a short definition of the Curaçao licence.

How licensing works now

Under the old system, a handful of master licence holders issued sublicences to casinos, and the casino's number pointed to the master holder rather than to a government file. The LOK ended that. The CGA now licenses each operator directly, and licence numbers take the form OGL/2024/..., for example OGL/2024/1451/0918 for Stake.

The move happened in phases. The regulator started the reform in November 2023, and existing operators applied for the new licences in 2024. A new licence starts as a provisional licence valid for six months, which can be extended once by six months, before the CGA decides on a final, indefinite licence. In December 2025 the CGA said it had not finished its final review for a group of operators and that they could keep operating on their provisional licences until it decides. A separate supplier licence requirement takes effect on 24 December 2026.

If a casino still shows an old-style number, such as 8048/JAZ followed by a year, that is a pre-reform sublicence, and it is a reason to look harder.

Player protection and complaints

The CGA's Player Complaints Policy (version 1.1, June 2025) sets rules for licensees:

1. Complain to the casino. Filing is free, and the casino must offer complaint forms in English and in the other languages its site uses.
2. Deadlines for the casino. It must acknowledge a complaint within one week and decide within four weeks, with one four-week extension if it tells you in advance.
3. ADR. If the dispute is not resolved, it can go to an independent alternative dispute resolution provider, paid for by the operator.

The CGA does not step into individual disputes. It collects complaint data from operators twice a year and uses it to spot problem licensees. Self-exclusion requests must be honoured for at least twelve months.

How to check a Curaçao licence

1. Copy the OGL number and company name from the casino footer or terms.
2. Open the certificate page. Most casinos link a CGA seal to a page on cert.cga.cw; type the address yourself if the link looks odd.
3. Check that the status reads Active, that the licence holder matches the company in the terms and that the exact domain you are on is in the approved list.
4. The CGA also publishes register files on cga.cw (online gaming licences, certificate holders and an enforcement register). It notes that these overviews do not guarantee current validity, so the certificate page is the better check.

Domain matters here. In our licence check of 95 crypto casinos, 1win held an active certificate that listed only one domain, not the one its terms sit on.

Why we call its future uncertain

The LOK did not come out of nowhere. Gambling reform is part of the Landspakket, the reform package Curaçao agreed with the Netherlands in November 2020 alongside Dutch liquidity support during the pandemic. In April 2025 the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security consulted the Netherlands Gambling Authority on gambling reform in Curaçao, Aruba and Sint Maarten under those agreements, and a Dutch-led body supports the work.

The Dutch focus is on Curaçao-licensed sites serving players in the Netherlands without a Dutch licence. In April 2026 the Dutch State Secretary for Justice and Security said that illegal online gambling aimed at the Netherlands from Curaçao had fallen sharply, and that many operators had moved to Costa Rica. Add the backlog of final licence decisions, and you have a regime that is still being reshaped by outside pressure. Licensed casinos can move, and some already have.

What it means for Canadians

A Curaçao licence is an offshore licence. Canada's Criminal Code lets provinces conduct and manage gambling, and only provincially run or provincially registered sites are part of that system. Ontario has its regulated market through iGaming Ontario and the AGCO, and Alberta opened one in July 2026. A Curaçao-only casino is registered in neither. Our guide to whether online gambling is legal in Canada covers the province-by-province picture.

So: no Canadian regulator will hear your complaint, and if your province is on the casino's restricted list, it can void winnings. Check the terms before you deposit and do not use a VPN to get around a block.

Casinos we review with a Curaçao licence

15 published reviews on Canada Gamblers list this licence. Each name links to the full review.

Our verdict

Curaçao has the longer history and, on paper, the more detailed complaint rules. But the system feels dated: many of its operators are still on provisional licences years into the reform, the published register files come with a disclaimer, and the regime's direction depends heavily on what the Netherlands pushes for next. Some of the best crypto casinos still hold a Curaçao licence, and they are good because of how they run, not because of the seal.

We rate Curaçao 3 out of 5. Check the certificate and the domain every time, and expect the picture to keep changing through 2026 and 2027.

Sources

• Curaçao Gaming Authority: Online gaming regulation
• Curaçao Gaming Authority: Licence registers
• Legal 500: Curaçao gambling law guide 2026
• Curaçao Chronicle: CGA player complaint rules (25 June 2025)
• Curaçao Chronicle: Operators continue under provisional licences (27 December 2025)
• Curaçao Chronicle: Dutch ministry and gambling authority discuss reforms (14 April 2025)
• Curaçao Chronicle: Illegal online gambling from Curaçao largely reduced (24 April 2026)
• Dutch Parliament: Agreement on conditions for liquidity support and the Landspakket Curaçao (2 November 2020)
• Criminal Code of Canada, section 207