New casinos not on GamStop are offshore sites holding licences from regulators such as Curaçao, Anjouan, Malta or Kahnawà:ke. They sit outside the Gambling Commission's register, so the national self-exclusion scheme cannot reach them, the £5 slots stake cap does not bind them, and their deposit and withdrawal limits are set by their own terms rather than British licence conditions.
The word "new" is doing a lot of work in this niche, and not much of it is honest. A site registered with a Curaçao licence three months ago is new in the sense that a new shop is new; a site that has relabelled itself as new is new in the sense that a repainted door is new. What actually changes when a casino opens outside the British licensing system is not the colour of the button, but the entire structure of limits around the player: how much can be staked on a slot spin, how much can be deposited before a check arrives, how much can be pulled out in one go, and who decides all three. On British-licensed sites those numbers are partly fixed by the Gambling Commission's licence conditions: a £5 maximum stake per online slots game cycle for adults since 9 April 2025, £2 for those aged 18 to 24 since 21 May 2025, and a £150 net-deposit financial vulnerability check threshold that has applied since 28 February 2025. Offshore, none of that applies and the operator writes its own ceiling. Which is why this page is about limits rather than about welcome offers.
The scale of the offshore market is smaller than the trade press implies and larger than the regulator would like. The Commission's analysis published 5 November 2026 estimates that among respondents who had gambled online in the past four weeks, 2.5 per cent had engaged with illegal gambling websites, with a further 1.5 per cent in the past 12 months. That is a minority, but hardly a rounding error.
Table of Contents9
- Where the Offshore Sites Get Their Licences
- GamStop Reaches Nothing Offshore
- The Limits, Side by Side
- Wagering Requirements, Where the Real Limit Sits
- Five Signs a Site Can Be Trusted With a Limit
- Checking a New Offshore Site in Six Steps
- What the Numbers Say About Offshore Volume
- Frequently Asked Questions
- The Short Version, Written on the Licence
Where the Offshore Sites Get Their Licences
The licence is the first thing to look at, because it determines almost everything else — including how much of a limit regime the operator is subject to.
Curaçao and the LOK reform
Curaçao rebuilt its regime when the National Ordinance on Games of Chance (LOK) took effect on 24 December 2024, replacing the old master-licence and sub-licence model with direct licensing by the Curaçao Gaming Authority. The legacy "orange" sub-licence certificates of operation ended on 15 October 2025, and a historic /JAZ number or legacy seal is no longer independent proof of a current licence. Operators holding a valid licence when the LOK commenced received a six-month provisional licence due to expire on 24 June 2025, extended by a further six months to 24 December 2025. Financially, the regime is cheap by European standards: a one-time, non-refundable application fee of EUR 4,592 for a B2C licence, and a total annual B2C fee of EUR 47,450 — a EUR 24,490 licence fee to the National Treasury plus a EUR 22,960 supervisory fee to the CGA.
The verification trap here is specific. The CGA issues a Certificate of Operation Seal only for an approved, registered player-facing domain; clicking it must redirect to cert.cga.cw, and if the certificate behind the seal names a different domain from the one being visited, the site is displaying somebody else's certificate. Since the CGA announced on 7 October 2026 that its previous portal would not return to service, that check has become harder to run, and the authority says it is working on an alternative verification mechanism.
Anjouan, and what its own regulator says
Anjouan, part of the Union of the Comoros, licenses internet gaming under legislation adopted in 2005, with issuance at EUR 17,828 one-time and EUR 17,828 annual renewal, plus EUR 500 per additional domain. Its certificates carry a unique licence number and a QR code linking to a public register. Anjouan Gaming itself said on 10 June 2026 that a licence "is not, and has never been presented as, a universal authorisation to operate in every country in the world" — an unusually candid admission from a regulator whose licensees are routinely marketed to British players. An ABC News investigation published 31 December 2025 reported that Anjouan Licensing Services claims to have issued more than 1,300 gambling licences at around EUR 17,000 each per year, and that Comorian financial intelligence officials described Anjouan Corporate Services as operating illegally. That last claim is reported, not established, but it belongs in the reader's mind alongside the licence certificate.
Kahnawà:ke, Malta and the places with no licence
The Kahnawà:ke Gaming Commission, established in 1996, has regulated interactive gaming since its Regulations concerning Interactive Gaming of 8 July 1999. Licensees must be hosted at Mohawk Internet Technologies, and the Commission's Logo Certificate Program, effective 15 January 2010, lets a player click the Commission's logo to generate a Certificate of Good Standing. Fees are rising: from 1 January 2027 the CPA application fee goes from USD 35,000 to USD 40,000 and the five-year renewal from USD 5,000 plus the annual fee to USD 40,000 including it. The MGA in Malta charges a EUR 5,000 application fee, a EUR 25,000 fixed annual licence fee and 5 per cent gaming tax on revenue, with minimum share capital of EUR 100,000 for Type 1 and Type 2 B2C licences. And then there is Costa Rica, which has no comprehensive gambling licensing regime at all; its Legislative Assembly rejected Bill No. 25,057 in early 2026, the bill that would have introduced one. The "data processing license" sometimes quoted in that context is not a licence in the strict legal sense.
All of these are offshore licences. None of them is a Great Britain licence, and the distinction is not semantic: the Gambling Commission states plainly that it is illegal for anyone to offer commercial gambling services to consumers in Great Britain without a Commission licence, including where the operator holds a licence in another jurisdiction. The offence behind that statement is section 33 of the Gambling Act 2005, which carries on summary conviction up to 51 weeks' imprisonment, a fine not exceeding level 5, or both. The offence attaches to the provider, not to the adult customer. Offshore sites are not licensed in Great Britain, UK protections do not apply on them, and where gambling has become a problem the National Gambling Helpline is free on 0808 8020 133, 24 hours a day.
GamStop Reaches Nothing Offshore
The scheme's formal name is Gamstop Online, run by The National Online Self Exclusion Scheme Limited, and it is a persistent source of confusion that it is very often typed "gamestop" — the word "game" suggests itself, which is why the scheme is written GamStop here throughout. It has been available since April 2018, going live on 27 April 2018, and was renamed Gamstop Online in November 2025 after a website update.
Its scope is the point. Gamstop Online blocks a person from gambling with all online gambling companies licensed in Great Britain — for six months, one year, five years, or five years with auto-renewal — and registration takes a few minutes but can take up to 24 hours to become effective. Once registered, the exclusion cannot be cancelled or deactivated during the period, and it stays in place after the chosen period ends unless the person contacts Gamstop to remove it. Registrations cannot be removed early; the Group's 2025 annual report devotes a section to its refusal to do so. If nobody deactivates after the chosen term, Gamstop holds the data through a further automatic seven-year self-exclusion period during which operators are told the person was previously excluded. Auto-renewal may only be switched off during the final six months of a five-year minimum exclusion period, and it continues for up to four further five-year periods.
The obligation that makes all this work is the licence condition. Since 31 March 2020, all online operators must be part of the scheme as a condition of their Commission licence, sitting in LCCP social responsibility code provision 3.5.5; in April 2020 the Commission added a requirement to check the entire customer base for registration at least every 24 hours, which also stopped registered people receiving direct marketing. On 3 April 2020 the Commission suspended the licences of two online operators for missing the 31 March deadline — evidence that the condition is enforced rather than decorative.
An offshore site is not a way round a self-exclusion. It is simply a place the exclusion cannot follow, and the Commission warned in an industry notice on 20 January 2025 that unlicensed sites available to GB consumers often target customers who have self-excluded via GAMSTOP and may have inadequate social responsibility and anti-money-laundering controls. The scheme's own terms are explicit that it blocks access to sites licensed in Great Britain only and cannot prevent access to organisations that do not participate. Self-exclusion holds for its full term and then stays in place until the person contacts GamStop to remove it — that is true whether or not the person subsequently plays somewhere offshore.
Registrations keep climbing. Gamstop recorded 117,756 new registrations during 2025, and had 561,983 active exclusions at 31 December 2025. By July 2026 the register stood at 614,738 people, of whom more than one in two had opted for the maximum five-year exclusion; across all age groups only one in four had chosen six months. Of the periods selected in 2025, 29 per cent chose six months, 24 per cent a year, 25 per cent five years and 22 per cent auto-renewal. Under-25s accounted for nearly one in three of all self-exclusions in the first half of 2026, a 26 per cent year-on-year increase.
The Limits, Side by Side
This is where the difference between a British licence and an offshore one stops being abstract. The table compares the binding constraints by limit type, on the rules rather than on any brand.
| Limit | British-licensed online site | No GamStop / offshore site |
|---|---|---|
| Slots stake per game cycle | £5 maximum for all adults since 9 April 2025; £2 for ages 18–24 since 21 May 2025 | Set by the operator; no licence cap |
| Speed between spins | Minimum 2.5 seconds from the start of a game to the next cycle (RTS 14D) | Set by the operator; no licence minimum |
| Wagering requirement on bonus funds | Capped at 10 times since 19 January 2026 (LCCP SR code 5.1.1) | Commonly 25×–40×; no licence cap |
| Mixed-product promotions | Banned since 19 January 2026 | Permitted unless the operator chooses otherwise |
| First-deposit limit prompt | Financial limit must be prompted before the first deposit and offered by a free-text box, from 31 October 2025 | At the operator's discretion |
| Deposit checks | Financial vulnerability checks since August 2024; €2,000 CDD threshold for identification and verification | At the operator's discretion; its own AML regime applies |
| Credit cards | Banned since 14 April 2020; e-wallet funds loaded from a credit card also barred | Commonly accepted, depending on the operator |
| Withdrawal ceiling | No maximum limit on withdrawing the deposit balance may be imposed | Maximum cashout clauses are common; one operator caps bonus-derived winnings at 300% of the bonus |
| Reverse withdrawal | Banned since 31 October 2021; RTS 14B bars cancelling a withdrawal request | Often still offered |
| Dispute route | Free ADR via a Commission-approved provider after eight weeks | The operator's chosen ADR provider, or none |
Read the table down the middle column and the pattern is a stack of positive obligations. Read the right-hand column and it is an absence. The credit card ban is a good illustration of the difference: since 14 April 2020, when licence condition 6.1.2 took effect, remote gambling licensed by the Commission cannot be funded by credit card, and operators must also ensure that money arriving from an e-wallet was not loaded from a credit card. That is a hard limit on how fast a balance can be built up. An offshore site that takes a credit card has not found a cleverer way to do business; it is simply not bound by the rule.
Wagering Requirements, Where the Real Limit Sits
If one term on an offshore casino decides more than any other how much of a bonus is actually the player's, it is the playthrough requirement.
The mechanism is straightforward. Bonus funds arrive with a condition attached: they must be wagered a set number of times before anything derived from them can be withdrawn. Offshore, that multiple is set by the operator and typically runs at 25× to 40× on welcome offers. The multiplier is only half the term, because games contribute differently — one offshore operator publishes a chart giving slots 100 per cent, table games 20 per cent, video poker and blackjack 10 per cent, roulette and baccarat 5 per cent, and craps, jackpot games and live dealer games 0 per cent. A 30× requirement satisfied entirely on roulette is therefore not 30× at all; it is 600×.
Then come the clauses that cap the upside. One operator reserves the right to limit withdrawals from winnings generated with bonus funds to 300 per cent of the credited bonus amount, with any excess voided. Another says the deposit amount itself is excluded from the wagering calculation. Both also cap the maximum bet while wagering — one at €5 for regular players and €10 for VIPs, rejecting any larger bet, the other at 20 per cent of the deposited amount — and both treat breach as grounds for forfeiting the bonus and the winnings built on it. Those are not hidden traps; they are published terms. They are simply terms nobody reads before depositing.
The British position is the mirror image. Since 19 January 2026, LCCP social responsibility code 5.1.1 caps wagering requirements at a maximum of 10 times and bans mixed-product promotions requiring two or more types of gambling. The Commission had originally set implementation for 19 December 2025 and moved it to 19 January 2026; when it consulted on the change it rejected an outright ban and a tighter cap in favour of 10×, saying the limit "will take out extreme levels as some licensees currently apply up to 60 times wagering requirements". It also requires that wagering requirements not apply to play with a customer's own deposit balance, that deposit and bonus balances always be displayed separately, and that a player be allowed to withdraw the deposit balance at any time, including while a bonus is pending or active. That last rule is what ended the practice behind so-called sticky bonuses, where the bonus is never withdrawable and is stripped out on cashout.
For the first deposit and every one after it, the practical test is the same: work out what the bonus is worth after the maximum bet rule, the game weighting and the cashout ceiling, and compare that with the deposit. In many offshore offers the honest number is close to zero.
Five Signs a Site Can Be Trusted With a Limit
Trustworthiness is not a feeling about a design. It is a set of things that can be checked in a few minutes, and each of them leaves a trace.
The licence can be verified on the regulator's own register
A licence is a claim until it is checked against the register the regulator publishes. For Curaçao, the licence number must resolve through the CGA's verification route, and a historic /JAZ number or legacy seal proves nothing on its own. For Anjouan, the certificate carries a unique licence number and a QR code that should open the public register; the authority's own framework says certificates that cannot be verified there should not be relied upon as evidence of licensing status. For Kahnawà:ke, clicking the Commission's logo should generate a Certificate of Good Standing for that specific site. The check takes two minutes and settles the question that everything else depends on.
The certificate names the domain being visited
A seal is only worth clicking if the certificate behind it matches. The CGA's certification policy is precise: clicking a Certificate of Operation Seal must redirect to cert.cga.cw, and if the certificate displays a different domain from the website being accessed, the site is showing another operator's certificate and should be treated as unauthorised or fraudulent. A CGA licence certificate is also not interchangeable with a Certificate of Operation. The quick check is to open the certificate and read the domain aloud against the address bar.
Terms and conditions disclose limits before a deposit, not after
British licence condition 17.1.1 prohibits requiring extra information at withdrawal that could reasonably have been requested earlier, and the Commission's 2026 blog reported that over a quarter of complaints reaching its Contact Centre concern identity verification, raised when documents are demanded only at withdrawal. There is no equivalent offshore guarantee. The check is to read the withdrawal section of the terms before depositing anything and to look for a maximum cashout, a maximum bet while wagering, a processing fee, a reverse-withdrawal option and a stated review period. If those clauses are only described as "at management's discretion", that is the answer.
The complaint route ends somewhere other than the operator
A site that adjudicates its own disputes has not passed the test. British licensees must offer a free route to an ADR entity after eight weeks, and must complete their internal process within that time. Anjouan requires licensees to name an approved ADR provider in player-facing terms, with operators expected to resolve complaints within 30 days before escalation; its approved list runs to EGIS ADR, Axion ADR, iGaming ADR and one licensee. The check is to search the terms for a named provider and a stated deadline. Note what the numbers on the British side look like: eCOGRA's report for 1 October 2024 to 30 September 2025 records 911 disputes, of which 150 valid ones concerned deposits and withdrawals, an average domestic resolution time of 31 days, and 17.8 per cent of completed disputes ruled in the consumer's favour. The house tends to win, but the reckoning exists.
Player funds sit in a separate account and the rating is disclosed
British licence condition 4.1.1 requires customer funds to be kept in a separate client bank account, and licence condition 4.2.1 requires an operator to state in writing whether those funds are protected on insolvency, at which of the three ratings — not protected, medium or high — and an operator rated not protected must remind the customer every six months of the value held. Keeping funds in a client account still does not guarantee a return if the operator fails. Anjouan's published standards require segregated player funds and certified random number generators. The check is to find the words in the terms rather than to assume them, and to remember that money staked in an open bet is not customer funds at all.
Checking a New Offshore Site in Six Steps
The order matters, because each step can end the exercise early and save the ones after it.
- Confirm the licence on the regulator's register. Look up the licence number at the authority that issued it. A Curaçao number must resolve through the CGA route and a historic /JAZ number proves nothing; an Anjouan QR code must open the public register. If it cannot be verified, stop — a licence that cannot be checked is a marketing claim.
- Match the certificate to the domain. Click the seal, if there is one, and read the domain named on the certificate against the address bar. A mismatch means the certificate belongs to another operator.
- Read the withdrawal clause before reading the bonus clause. Find the maximum cashout, the maximum bet while wagering, the processing fee, the stated review period and whether reverse withdrawal exists. These decide how much of any win can actually leave the site, and they are only useful before a deposit.
- Calculate the bonus honestly. Take the wagering multiple, apply the game weighting — roulette at 5 per cent turns a 30× requirement into an effective 600× — apply the maximum bet rule, then the cashout ceiling. Compare the result with the deposit, and treat the difference as the price of the offer.
- Find the complaint route and time limit in writing. Locate a named ADR provider and a resolution deadline in the terms, and note that in Great Britain the operator must let the customer reach an approved provider free of charge after eight weeks.
- Check the payment rails and set a limit that is not the site's own. British licensees have been barred from credit card gambling since 14 April 2020, including e-wallet funds loaded from a card, and must prompt a financial limit before the first deposit. Offshore, the prompt may never come, so the number has to be chosen before the account is opened — a limits trap that the site has no interest in installing.
What the Numbers Say About Offshore Volume
Two things are true at once and it pays to hold both. The offshore market is louder than it is large, and it is growing.
The Commission's annual report for the year to 31 March 2025 put total Great Britain gross gambling yield at £17.5 billion for April 2025 to March 2026, up 4.4 per cent, with remote casino, betting and bingo generating £8.3 billion of it. Set against that, estimates of the unlicensed share diverge wildly by method: market-intelligence firm H2 Gambling Capital estimated stakes with illegal operators in the UK reached £16.6 billion in 2025, up from about £5 billion in 2019, with the legal share of gambling falling from 97 per cent to 92 per cent. Frontier Economics, working for the Betting and Gaming Council, conservatively put online black-market stakes at £2.7 billion a year, 2.1 per cent of £128 billion staked with regulated operators. Yield Sec, for the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, put the unregulated share at 9 per cent of an £8.8 billion market in 2025. The Commission's own survey work, published 5 November 2026, found 2.5 per cent of recent online gamblers had engaged with an illegal site.
Anyone quoting a single figure from that list as if it were settled is selling something. The Commission itself notes that its October 2024 methodology does not capture activity hidden by VPNs, and its illegal gambling dashboard recorded 586 illegal gambling websites accessible to GB consumers in September 2026, with 311 sites disrupted in the second quarter of 2026 to 2027 — 77 per cent of which saw a reduction in estimated traffic. Enforcement against sites is real; enforcement against the demand for them is not.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are new casinos not on GamStop legal in the UK?
The site is the one committing an offence, not the player. Section 33 of the Gambling Act 2005 makes it an offence to provide gambling facilities without an operating licence, punishable on summary conviction by up to 51 weeks' imprisonment, a fine not exceeding level 5, or both. The Commission states it is illegal to offer commercial gambling services to consumers in Great Britain without a Commission licence, including where the operator holds a licence elsewhere.
What is a new casino not on GamStop actually licensed by?
Usually one of a handful of offshore authorities: Curaçao under the framework that took effect on 24 December 2024, Anjouan under 2005 legislation, Kahnawà:ke under regulations enacted on 8 July 1999, or the Malta Gaming Authority. Some have no gambling licence at all — Costa Rica operates no comprehensive licensing regime and rejected Bill No. 25,057 in early 2026.
Do new casino sites not on GamStop have to join GamStop?
No. The obligation sits in the Commission's Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice at social responsibility code provision 3.5.5, which binds licensees of British licences. An operator holding only an offshore licence is not bound by it and is not connected to the scheme, so a self-exclusion registered with Gamstop Online does not reach it.
Can a new UK casino not on GamStop set its own withdrawal limits?
Yes, and many do. A maximum cashout clause is common offshore — one operator limits withdrawals from bonus-derived winnings to 300 per cent of the credited bonus, voiding the excess. British licence conditions and CMA undertakings bar any maximum limit on withdrawing the deposit balance, and the Commission's published example of a prohibited term is "You may withdraw up to £50 per day and up to £500 per week".
What does a brand new casino not on GamStop mean by a wagering requirement?
It means the operator's own playthrough multiple, commonly 25× to 40× on welcome offers offshore, where no licence cap applies. Game weighting changes the arithmetic: one published chart gives slots 100 per cent, table games 20 per cent, roulette 5 per cent and live dealer 0 per cent. British licensees have been capped at 10× since 19 January 2026.
Is there a new pay by phone casino not on GamStop that is safer?
No payment method confers safety, because the licence determines what happens to the money, not the rail it travels on. Pay-by-phone billing routes a charge to a mobile account, which is still a card-free payment method on a site whose licence, withdrawal ceiling, bonus terms and complaint route all remain offshore. The Commission's list of banks offering gambling blocks, last updated 16 October 2026, names eleven providers whose blocks decline gambling Merchant Category Codes at card level — and a phone bill is not one of them.
The Short Version, Written on the Licence
Judged by the only thing that decides the outcome — which regulator holds the licence, and what limits that licence imposes — a new casino not on GamStop is not a British casino with different rules but an offshore operator whose rules are its own, from the £5 slots cap it need not apply to the reverse-withdrawal button it may still offer to the withdrawal ceiling nobody has forbidden it to set. Nothing about this is hidden: the Commission states that it is illegal to offer commercial gambling services to consumers in Great Britain without its licence, warns that unlicensed sites often target people who have self-excluded, and the scheme's terms are explicit that a GamStop exclusion holds for its full term and then stays until the person contacts Gamstop Online to remove it. The National Gambling Helpline, free on 0808 8020 133, is open 24 hours a day, every day of the year, and answers whoever calls it. The number that should settle the question was published on 5 November 2026: among recent online gamblers, 2.5 per cent had engaged with an illegal site. Small, persistent, and growing — which is precisely how a market looks before it becomes a problem.