Curaçao Gaming Authority (CGA): what the licence means for players

At a glance

Jurisdiction

Curaçao

Legal basis

National Ordinance on Games of Chance (LOK), in force 24 December 2024 according to the CGA

Tier in our method

Tier C · quality score 58.75 of 100 · how we rate regulators

Public register

Online Gaming Licence registry (PDF) and certificate pages

Domain-level check

Partly: only through the regulator’s certificate pages

Researched

5 Oct 2026 from primary sources; confidence medium

Casinos we profile

5 of 15

What the authority is and does

The Curaçao Gaming Authority (CGA) licenses and supervises online gambling operated from Curaçao, a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its legal basis is the National Ordinance on Games of Chance (Landsverordening op de kansspelen, LOK), which the CGA states became effective on 24 December 2024. The older offshore regime (LBH, 1993) still matters under the transitional provisions in Article 15.1 LOK.

The CGA describes the earlier master-licence arrangement as replaced: the register header reads “Licenses Granted under the New Online Gaming Policy (Effective November 15, 2023)”. LBH licence holders that operate the licensed activities themselves received a provisional licence of up to six months, extendable once by six months (Art. 15.1 LOK).

The CGA is also the anti-money-laundering supervisor for gambling in and from Curaçao (since 15 February 2019). Its January 2025 AML regulations require customer due diligence when a player transacts NAf 4,000 or more. Under the LOK a player can ask in writing to be self-excluded for at least 12 months, irrevocable during that term (Art. 5.4).

Our tier: C, and why

We rate each licensing regulator, not the casino, on five factors scored 0 to 4. Tier C covers quality scores of 35 to 59 with verifiability of at least 2. The tier describes how strong and verifiable the framework is. It is not a rating of any casino, and it does not predict how a casino treats its players; read the licensing section of the methodology for the weights and the tier table.

What the public register shows, and how to check an entry

The register is published as PDF files, not as a searchable database. Its columns are licence number, licensee, B2B or B2C, company registration number, issued, expires and status. It prints no domains; the exact domain can only be read from the certificate seal on the CGA’s certificate site, which has no public search by domain.

On the register page the CGA says the overviews “do not guarantee the current validity of the licenses” and that “no rights can be derived from these overviews”.

The status column holds words the CGA does not define. In the register dated 2 October 2026, 283 of 616 numbered rows read “Assessment in progress”, and 281 of them carried an expiry date before the register date. The register labels 58 other rows “Expired”, so these rows are not labelled expired by the CGA. We found no official statement on what the status means for validity after the listed date, and no CGA FAQ or legend; we therefore record the question as open rather than reading it either way. 209 rows read “Indefinite”.

Register: Online Gaming Licence registry (PDF) and certificate pages. The steps we follow:

1. Click the CGA seal on the casino site. It must open a page on cert.cga.cw: check the address bar rather than the seal image.
2. Confirm that it is a Certificate of Operation (the B2C certificate) and that the domain shown is exactly the domain you are on. The CGA’s certification policy says a different domain on the certificate should be considered unauthorised.
3. Note the licensee name, licence number and status on the certificate, then find the same licence number, legal entity and company registration number in the current Online Gaming Licence registry PDF.
4. Read the status and the expiry date. Six-month terms are common, so the date matters; the register has no legend for its status words.
5. Search the CGA enforcement register and public warnings for the entity and the brand, and keep a dated screenshot of the certificate.

The same procedure, for every regulator, is in how to check a licence yourself. How Curaçao Gaming Authority compares with the other tiers is summarised in the licence guide’s regulator section. For the side-by-side with Anjouan, read Anjouan vs Curaçao licences from the player’s side.

The register in numbers

The licence-watch snapshot of 9 Oct 2026 counts 615 entries in the CGA registry. In the 90 days before that date the register dates 16 B2C licences (9 in the last 30 days). The CGA re-dates an entry when it renews it, so part of those are renewals of earlier licences, not first licences. The registry prints no domains, so the brand behind a new licence cannot be read from it. The full list, with the method and the CSV, is in the new licences data report.

If something goes wrong: complaints and recourse

The CGA states that it does not handle individual complaints against gaming providers, but it accepts reports of breaches. The LOK requires the operator to take a free complaint within six months of the event, acknowledge it within one week and give a reasoned decision within four weeks (extendable by four), and to offer alternative dispute resolution at its own cost (Art. 5.3). Contracts are governed by Curaçao law and disputes go to the courts of Curaçao (Art. 5.5).

The CGA publishes a list of certificate holders under Art. 5.17 LOK (updated 31 August 2026) that names five test laboratories and seven ADR providers: Resolvo Curaçao, ADR Curaçao, Cadre, EGIS-FZCO, ABC-ADR, iGamingADR and IBAS.

The law provides for a guarantee fund to which B2C licensees contribute to insure the payout of player balances (Art. 5.7). We found no implementing regulation, so whether the fund operates is not verified. The CGA may also attach segregation conditions for player balances to a licence (Art. 5.8).

Limits and caveats

• The regime is new and many licences are still provisional. The local-substance requirement was postponed to 1 April 2027 and licensing of suppliers becomes mandatory on 24 December 2026.
• The CGA’s enforcement register (updated 14 September 2026) listed 32 entries, 31 revocations and one “not extended”, and describes itself as covering only actions that affect licence status. We found no published fines and no annual enforcement report, although the July 2026 enforcement policy says one is published.
• On 2 October 2026 the CGA announced that its online gaming portal was offline and stated that this does not affect the validity of existing licences.
• Our regulator record notes that the framework is close to the Tier B threshold and is to be re-assessed after the first annual report or published fines.

Casinos we profile under this licence

5 of the 15 casinos we profile name this licensing authority in their terms. The columns are the register finding for the exact domain at our last check, not an assessment of the casino; each profile shows the sources and dates. The same fields for all casinos are in the licence register check dataset.

Questions

Does the CGA settle disputes between players and casinos?

No. The CGA states that it does not handle individual complaints against gaming providers. The route in the law is the operator’s own complaint process and then alternative dispute resolution paid for by the operator; the CGA accepts reports of breaches.

How do I check that a Curaçao licence covers the site I am on?

Open the seal and make sure it lands on cert.cga.cw, then compare the domain on the Certificate of Operation with the address in your browser. The register PDF lists licence number, licensee and status but no domains.

What does “Assessment in progress” in the CGA register mean?

The CGA does not define it in any official source we read. In the register of 2 October 2026 it appeared on 283 of 616 rows, most of them with an expiry date already past. We record this as an open question and show the register and the certificate side by side on each profile.

Does a Tier C rating mean a Curaçao casino is a poor choice?

No. The tier rates how verifiable, enforced and transparent the regulatory framework is, not the casino. A casino’s own terms and conduct are assessed separately on its profile.

Sources

Primary sources read on the dates shown; official and issuer pages open in a new tab and are not endorsements.

• CGA: online gaming (LOK) · read 5 Oct 2026
• CGA: licence registry page and disclaimer · read 5 Oct 2026
• CGA: Online Gaming Licence registry, updated 2 Oct 2026 · read 5 Oct 2026
• CGA: certification policy · read 5 Oct 2026
• LOK, official text (Dutch) · read 5 Oct 2026
• CGA: portal announcement, 2 Oct 2026 · read 5 Oct 2026
• CGA: stakeholder bulletin Q2 2026 · read 5 Oct 2026