The end of the master licence era

For decades, Curacao's gambling industry ran on a master licence model: a small number of master licence holders could issue sub-licences to operators with relatively little scrutiny. It was fast, cheap and lightly policed - which is exactly why so many offshore casinos chose it, and exactly why critics saw it as a weak point in player protection.

That era is over. The National Ordinance on Games of Chance (known by its Dutch initials, LOK) became law in December 2024, the legacy sub-licences expired in January 2025, and a new regulator - the Curacao Gaming Authority, or CGA - now issues licences directly to operators. This is the most significant change to offshore gambling regulation in years, and it is still working through the system in 2026.

What the CGA framework actually requires

The new regime is built around three licence categories: a B2C licence for operators running casinos and sportsbooks, a B2B licence for software and payment suppliers, and a non-profit category for charitable gaming. The B2C licence is the one that matters for the casinos UK players encounter.

To get one, an operator now has to do things the old master licence regime never asked of them:

• Disclose ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs). The people who actually own the company must be named and checked. The old model allowed far more anonymity.
• Submit detailed AML and KYC plans. Operators must show how they will monitor transactions and verify identities - and crypto-native operators face the same scrutiny as fiat-only ones.
• Segregate player funds. Customer money must be held separately from operating funds.
• Provide responsible-gambling tools. Deposit limits, self-exclusion options and similar features are expected, not optional.
• Pass fit-and-proper checks. Senior management is vetted.

The numbers tell the story

The CGA is not rubber-stamping. As of April 2026, it had processed roughly 140 direct licence applications, approving 87 and rejecting or shelving the rest - a rejection rate close to 38%. For a jurisdiction whose entire historical reputation was "easy to get", that is a meaningful shift. It signals the CGA wants to raise the floor, even if it costs Curacao some volume.

What this means for UK players

Here is the honest, balanced read.

It is a genuine improvement - on paper and increasingly in practice. A casino licensed directly under the CGA framework has cleared a higher bar than one that bought a sub-licence under the old system. UBO disclosure, fund segregation and AML obligations are real consumer-protection mechanisms. If you are looking at a Curacao-licensed site, a current direct CGA licence is a better signal than the old-style master sub-licence.

But it is not the UK system. The CGA is a young regulator. It does not offer the dispute-resolution depth, the affordability framework or the enforcement track record of the UKGC. Curacao reform narrows the gap; it does not close it.

And the transition is messy. Some operators are still on transitional arrangements, some are mid-application, and some have moved to other jurisdictions - notably Anjouan - rather than meet the new standards. That makes verification more important than ever, and we walk through the exact steps in our guide to confirming an offshore licence is real.

How to read a Curacao licence in 2026

When you see a Curacao claim on a casino footer, the questions to ask are: Is this a direct CGA licence or a legacy master sub-licence? Does the licence number resolve on the CGA's own register? Does the named licensee match the company actually running the site? A site that cannot answer those cleanly should give you pause.

The operators we cover on this site, including Velobet and Rolletto, are assessed against licensing and transparency criteria set out on our methodology page - we do not publish operators we cannot verify.

The bottom line

Curacao's reform is one of the more constructive developments in the offshore market. The CGA framework demands real things - ownership transparency, AML, segregated funds, responsible-gambling tools - and the rejection rate suggests it means it. For UK players, it makes a current direct CGA licence a more trustworthy signal than the old master sub-licence ever was. It does not, however, restore the protections of the UK system, and it does not remove the player's duty to verify.

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