Ever scrolled all the way down to the bottom of a casino site and noticed that the casino is registered in some random part of the world? That registration will have been carried out by a gaming authority.
Every casino is licensed by some kind of gaming authority. Online casinos in the UK, the US, and every other country in the world where online casino games are illegal to have a license. But not necessarily in the country where the game is being played.
Let’s find out what these gaming authorities do and where they come from.
What Are the Functions of a Gaming Authority?
Gaming authorities work behind the scenes to make sure that the casinos they regulate are behaving as they should be. There are set rules for each country and therefore for each authority.
These rules are likely to include the enforcing of minimum age for players, checking that the casinos are offering responsible gambling tools and making sure that they do not hold onto players’ money for too long after withdrawals are requested.
They’ll also be checking to see that each of the games offered by the casinos is legit in that it pays out fairly, both through the amount of cash and the regularities of the wins.
The authorities will hand out the licenses in the first place if a casino can prove it’s going to operate in a legitimate way. The way that this is proven varies from authority to authority.
The gaming authority will also collect the license application fees and dish out any fines or further criminal proceedings to a casino site that is found to have broken the rules at any point.
Which Gaming Authorities Are There?
Gaming authorities come from all around the world. There are loads of bodies from loads of different countries that will take part in the licensing and regulation of the online casinos themselves.
And the fact that the casinos are online means that there is more flexibility as to where the businesses are actually located. In most cases, they will need to be legally based in the same country that the license is from but they don’t need to live there.
That’s why there are so many casinos registered in countries such as Malta and Curacao. These countries are very small but they provide perks for the casinos that they cannot get elsewhere.
These countries provide more affordable licenses for the casinos and lower taxes than if they were to be registered and licensed in mainland countries such as the US and the UK. But some countries even have multiple gaming authorities which makes things even more confusing!
For example, USA online casinos can be licensed by authorities in New Orleans, Pennsylvania and Michigan. In Canada, some casinos are licensed by the KGC whereas online casinos in Ontario are licensed by iGaming Ontario. The small print on how these licenses can be obtained is very complicated, so the legal side of things can be a bit of a headache for the online casinos themselves.
Last Thoughts of Online Gaming Authorities
You might not think that gaming authorities impact your life as a casino gamer, but they are actually pretty essential. They make sure that we players are treated fairly in a number of different ways.
Without gaming authorities, casinos could easily bend the rules and illegally take money off of us without paying us for the wins that we make. And that would be pretty chaotic.