Gaming licence
A gaming licence is the legal permission a regulator grants an operator to offer casino-style games, such as slots, roulette and blackjack, to players in a given jurisdiction. In Ireland that permission is being moved from the old Revenue-administered regime to the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland under the Gambling Regulation Act 2024, and the licence on an operator’s footer tells you which body you would complain to if a withdrawal is refused.
Who issues a gaming licence in Ireland
The 2024 Act lets the GRAI issue Business to Consumer, Business to Business and charitable or philanthropic licences, and Chapter 6, beginning at section 112, sets out how a Business to Consumer application is made.
Each licence class needs its own commencement order before the GRAI can grant it, and so far the orders cover betting only.
Remote betting licences commenced on 1 July 2026, while the GRAI has said gaming, lottery and B2B applications will open in phases across 2027 and 2028. Until a commencement order for gaming exists, no online casino holds an Irish gaming licence from the GRAI.
Gaming licence versus betting licence
The two are often treated as one, yet the Act separates them by product: betting covers wagers on events such as sports, whereas gaming covers games of chance played against the house or other players.
A bookmaker holding a GRAI remote betting licence is not thereby licensed for its casino tab.
That distinction matters when you read a footer that names the GRAI, because the licence number should be checked against the product you are actually using.
What a foreign licence covers
Most casino sites open to Irish players show a licence from the Malta Gaming Authority, Curaçao or Kahnawake, and each of those binds the operator to its own regulator’s rules rather than to Irish law.
A complaint about such a site goes to that foreign body, not to the GRAI, and the protection on offer varies considerably between the three.
What I check first is whether the licence number on the footer appears on the issuing regulator’s public register, under the same company name shown in the site’s terms.
A logo alone proves nothing.
