A casino footer shows a licence number. You find the same number in Curaçao’s public register—then notice that the date beside it has passed, while the status says “Assessment in progress.” Is the casino licensed? The PDF alone cannot answer that question. It identifies a company, a permission and a recorded status at a particular moment; it is not a live certificate for every website using the company’s name.
The scale of that distinction is not hypothetical. In its row-by-row census of the Curaçao Gaming Authority’s 22 July 2026 register, BullsRank found 261 of 660 entries whose printed expiry dates had passed by the edition’s own date but whose statuses were neither “Expired” nor “Revoked.” The underlying 22 July regulator PDF is public. A passed date is a reason to investigate; it is not, by itself, a finding that 261 operators were acting unlawfully.
That is the useful way to approach the register: as a starting point for verification, not a green tick or a blacklist. The Curaçao Gaming Authority’s own register page warns that its overviews do not guarantee a licence’s current validity because status can change.
A row belongs to a company, not automatically to a casino site
The register has separate columns for licence number, licensee, company type, company registration number, issue date, expiry date and status. Its first test is an exact match between the licence number claimed on a gambling website and the number assigned to a legal entity in the PDF. A similar-looking number is not enough. A company registration number is also not a gaming-licence number, even when both appear together in a footer. BullsRank’s census notes how easily those two fields can be confused; the regulator’s PDF prints them in different columns.
The second test is the legal name. Does the operator identified in the site’s terms match the licensee in the register? A trading brand may differ from its legal owner, but the chain should be traceable. A row for a game supplier does not, on its own, establish that a customer-facing casino is licensed to take deposits. Curaçao’s register distinguishes B2B and B2C company types, and the Authority’s licensing guidance explains the separate operator and supplier routes. Our broader guide to supplier versus operator licences explains why the activity, rather than the brand label, determines the licensing question.
Even a correct company match does not automatically attach every website to that permission. Curaçao’s provisional online-gaming conditions say approved domains and subdomains are listed in the licensee’s portal account. The public PDF does not present a complete domain-to-licence map. A copied footer or a brand operated by another entity can therefore create a misleading appearance of a match. The same ownership question appears in white-label sportsbooks, where the consumer brand, platform and regulated operator need not be the same company.
Why a past date needs its status column
BullsRank’s July snapshot did not find 261 rows marked “Expired.” It found 224 with a past printed date and “Assessment in progress,” plus 37 with a past date and a blank status. Those are different statements. The PDF was recording a date and a status that a reader cannot reconcile from the row alone. It also contained 32 rows explicitly marked “Expired,” 41 marked “Revoked” and 193 marked “Indefinite.” The 660-row total was the size of a cumulative register, not a count of 660 currently valid operating licences. BullsRank’s method and corrected counts · 22 July registry edition
The legal framework makes a single-date reading still less safe. The Authority says a provisional licence under the National Ordinance on Games of Chance can run for six months and may be extended for another six months, depending on the applicant’s progress. A definitive licence can be indefinite, subject to suspension or revocation. Those are the regulator’s general rules; they do not tell us whether a particular row with a past date received an extension or remains authorised. That determination would require current, licence-specific confirmation from the Authority. CGA licensing guidance
Nor should “Indefinite” be read as “immune from review.” The label means the row has no fixed end date in that edition. The Authority’s guidance expressly allows later suspension or revocation. The status column and the date must be read together, and neither field can substitute for the regulator’s current decision.
The PDF is a dated edition, not a live dashboard
Fifteen days after the July edition, BullsRank checked the 6 August register against it. The report found 88 rows whose status changed: 83 went from blank to “Assessment in progress,” four from assessment to revoked, and one from assessment to blank. The total number of rows stayed at 660. That movement is why a screenshot without its edition date is poor evidence of a licence’s present status. BullsRank’s comparison and correction note
The current register link now points to a later edition dated 21 September 2026. The July and August figures above are historical observations from those editions, not claims about the number of past-date entries today. If a casino or commentator cites an older PDF, ask when it was published and whether the status changed in the newer one. Keep a dated copy or screenshot of the row you actually checked.
A licence is not a passport to every market
A register can be accurate about what it printed on a given day and still be insufficient to answer a different question: “Can this exact website lawfully offer games to this exact customer right now?” That question involves the legal entity, approved domain, present licence decision and rules where the customer lives. A Curaçao entry does not replace the permission required in another market. The Authority’s provisional conditions require licensees to comply with the laws of jurisdictions in which they offer games.
A better check takes four pieces of evidence
Start with the casino’s terms, not just its footer. Record the legal operator name and the full licence number. Then find both in the latest PDF on the Authority’s own register page, checking whether the row is B2C or B2B and whether the registration number has been mistaken for the licence number. Next, read the issue date, expiry date and status together, with the PDF’s edition date visible. Finally, look for an authoritative link between the particular domain and that legal operator. If the public material cannot establish it, ask the operator or the regulator for clarification rather than filling the gap with an assumption.
The check should also fit the reason it is being done. A player evaluating where to deposit needs more than a licence number: withdrawal terms, dispute routes, the contracting entity and applicable local law matter too. Our guide to what happens to player funds if an operator fails covers one risk a licensing badge cannot settle. An analyst comparing operators should preserve each source edition and describe uncertainty openly instead of turning a stale status into a binary score.
The most important finding in BullsRank’s census is therefore not that hundreds of casinos were “unlicensed”—the report does not establish that. It is that a sizeable, precisely dated slice of the public register could not be understood from the expiry field alone. Read the company, number, status and edition together. When they still do not answer the question, leave it open until the regulator does.
