German gambling licence: the GGL, the whitelist and why the 4 operators are not on it

Anyone looking for a German casino licence ends up at an authority in Halle an der Saale. The Joint Gambling Authority of the German Federal States (GGL) issues the permits that apply in every federal state and keeps the official whitelist of permitted providers. The overview of every casino licence that Bizzo, KatsuBet, Posido and Neospin cite shows licences from abroad – a German permit is not among them.

A full-text search of the whitelist retrieved on 02.10.2026 finds neither the brand names nor their domains nor the companies behind them: TechSolutions, Scores55, Stellar, Estolio and Metlait do not appear. At the same time, all four accept players from Germany according to de.casino.guru. According to casino.guru, they cite licences from Curaçao, Anjouan, Estonia and the Tobique Gaming Commission (New Brunswick). What applies to players when an operator works without a GGL permit is summarised in the overview of casinos without a German licence, covering withdrawals, account closures and refund claims.

The GGL: based in Halle, since 01.07.2021, issuing permits since 01.01.2023

The federal states established the GGL on 01.07.2021 as a public-law institution with legal capacity, headquartered in Saxony-Anhalt. According to its legal notice, the address is Hansering 15, 06108 Halle (Saale), and the executive board is Ronald Benter. The authority mainly supervises cross-state offers on the internet. Under § 27f of the 2021 State Treaty on Gambling (GlüStV 2021) it is responsible for permits valid in all states, for the whitelist, for the limit file, for the file against parallel play and for adjusting the maximum stake on virtual slot games.

The GGL has held its full remit only since 01.01.2023. Until 31.12.2022, state authorities issued the permits that were uniform across the states, and Saxony-Anhalt also kept the whitelist until then. Since then, the GGL has issued permits for virtual slot games and online poker and monitors whether the conditions are met; applications go to Unit 21 in Halle.

According to a press release of 22.09.2026, 129 organisers and intermediaries currently hold a GGL permit and are on the whitelist, and a total of 229 gambling websites are permitted. For 2025 the authority reports more than 600 supervisory procedures, with around 100 people employed there.

What a German permit covers: slot games, poker, online casino

§ 4(4) GlüStV 2021 limits permits for internet gambling to a few types: lotteries sold directly or through intermediaries, sports and horse-race betting, and the organisation and direct sale of online casino games, virtual slot games and online poker. Each type has its own procedure, and not all of them sit with the same authority.

Virtual slot games are what players know as online slots. A permit holder may only offer each individual game after the competent authority has approved it on application. To do so, the holder submits a version of the game for inspection, and material changes require a new approval, which can be revoked at any time. Slot games that imitate roulette, blackjack or baccarat with a banker are not admissible in this category. Virtual slot games are also only offered on the internet; sale in physical venues is excluded.

In online poker, each variant must be approved separately. The permit sets upper limits for the minimum stake per hand, the table balance and the tournament fees. Only natural persons play against each other, tables are allocated at random, and playing several games at once is prohibited; the authority may allow up to four virtual tables.

Online casino games with a banker, such as roulette or blackjack on the web, are a matter for the individual states instead. Under § 22c they may run these games for their own territory, either themselves or through public bodies, or grant concessions, at most as many as there are casino concessions under state law as of 17.01.2020. The GGL is expressly not responsible for these games. If a concession holder ignores the restriction to the territory of the states that licensed it, the concession must be revoked.

Requirements: disclosed ownership, a seat in the EU, five or seven years

For sports betting, online poker and virtual slot games, § 4a GlüStV 2021 requires the ownership and shareholding structure to be fully disclosed. For legal entities this includes everyone holding more than 5 percent of the capital or voting rights, as well as all trust arrangements. Neither the applicant nor affiliated companies or controlling persons may organise or broker gambling without a permit.

This disclosure is hard to trace for three of the four brands, because the sources name different companies. As the operators of Posido, casino.guru lists Stellar Ltd, whereas AskGamblers names Estolio Limited; the operator's own terms name no company. For Bizzo, AskGamblers and the lcb.org fact box name TechSolutions Group N.V., while the running text on lcb.org names TechSolutions (CY) Group Limited. casino.guru and AskGamblers assign KatsuBet to Scores55 Tech B.V., whereas lcb.org names Kika Technology B.V. Only for Neospin do all sources name the same company, Metlait SRL.

Applicants must have their seat in an EU member state or an EEA state. Those without a seat in Germany appoint an authorised agent for service and representation in the country. The permit is issued in writing with effect for all states: five years for the first grant, then seven years each time. A shorter term is possible in justified cases, and the permit may only be transferred with the authority's consent.

In addition, an unlimited, directly enforceable bank guarantee from a credit institution in the EU or EEA is required. It secures players' payout claims and claims of the state and amounts to five million euros. The authority may raise it up to the expected monthly turnover, to a maximum of 50 million euros.

The whitelist: what an entry shows, as of 02.10.2026

The whitelist is the official list under § 9(8) GlüStV 2021, which the GGL has published and updated continuously since 01.01.2023. It contains not only providers with a GGL permit but also offers supervised by other German authorities, such as the Lotto-Toto bloc and state casinos. When retrieved on 02.10.2026, each entry showed the name of the organiser or intermediary, the type of gambling, the address, the sales territory, the competent authority (GGL or state authority) and the websites. For GGL permits, the date of the first permit is added, for example 28.09.2026 in the entry for jollie.de.

The whitelist does not list a licence number. Searches work by name and domain: the list can be filtered by type of gambling and competent authority and searched in full text.

According to the GGL, permitted providers must state on their home page that they hold a state permit and which authority issued it. The GGL also provides them with an inspection and permit seal. Even so, the GGL describes a look at the whitelist as the safest way to check. A pending application changes nothing: an offer remains without a permit until the application has been examined, approved and the provider added, and for data-protection reasons the authorities do not say whether an application has been filed.

1. Copy the domainCopy the exact address of the casino from the browser bar, with its ending and without subpages.
2. Use the full-text searchEnter the domain and the brand name in the whitelist search, then the name of the operating company from the legal notice.
3. Match the type of gamblingAn entry applies to the type of gambling it names; a provider listed only for sports betting is not covered for virtual slot games.
4. Read the competent authorityFor online casino games with a banker, the entry names a state authority as competent, not the GGL.

The 4 operators in the whitelist: 0 matches

The table sets the whitelist result next to the licences the brands rely on instead and the company the sources name in each case. Where registers and portals such as casino.guru disagree, the row says so.

Scroll the table sideways →

For Bizzo, casino.guru names the Curaçao licence OGL/2024/590/0758. According to the MTR, the Estonian entry belongs to a company from Tallinn holding the operating permits HKL000381 (until 31.03.2027) and HKL000382 (until 31.03.2042). The brand has been on the market since 2021; according to casino.guru, the website, live chat and customer service are available in German.

KatsuBet states that it operates under a licence from Curaçao, according to casino.guru with the number OGL/2024/1307/0748. Germany is not on the list of restricted countries in its terms dated 15.06.2026. The website is available in German, while live chat and customer service are not in German according to casino.guru and English only according to AskGamblers.

For Posido, casino.guru names the Anjouan licence ALSI-202411077-FI2 and the Estonian number HKL000354. According to the register, the Anjouan number belongs to Stellar Ltd and is valid until 21.11.2026, but posido.com appears in none of the register's 1,543 entries (as of 08.10.2026). On the Estonian EMTA list of legal operators (as of 01.10.2026), however, posido.com is listed under Estolio Limited, which holds the permits HKL000355 and HKL000543 in the MTR register; the number cited by casino.guru is not in the MTR.

For Neospin, the Anjouan register confirms the entry: Metlait SRL, ALSI-202509073-FI2, type B2C, issued on 30.09.2025, valid until 29.09.2027, with neospin.com in the domain list. As a second licence, casino.guru and lcb.org name the Tobique Gaming Commission from New Brunswick.

Curaçao, Anjouan, Malta: what foreign licences show

Instead of the GGL, the sources name foreign regulators for the four brands, and their registers differ widely in how accessible they are. Anjouan Gaming keeps a public register that can be searched by number, company or domain. It shows company, number, type and status, and only the status Active entitles a licensee to operate. On 08.10.2026 the dataset contained 1,543 licences.

For a Curaçao licence this option is currently missing: the portal of the Curaçao Gaming Authority has been shut down since 07.10.2026, so OGL numbers cannot be checked with the regulator at the moment. According to the CGA, existing licences remain valid. The CGA does not mediate disputes between players and operators.

The MGA licence from Malta is usually what people mean when they ask about an EU licence. None of the four brands cites one. The Malta Gaming Authority keeps a Licensee Register searchable by licensee, status, URL or gaming service, plus an Enforcement Register and a list of unauthorised URLs. Advertising by MGA licensees must show the licensee's name and licence number. A licence from Malta does not appear in the GGL whitelist, which lists only German permits.

AskGamblers additionally names PAGCOR for Posido. The Philippine authority cancelled all internet gaming licences with effect from 15.12.2024. Because the whitelist carries no numbers while foreign registers are searched precisely by number, it pays to match each of the licence numbers of the 4 operators against company and domain in the competent register.

Is online casino permitted in Germany?

Yes, with a permit: online slots and online poker through the GGL for all states, roulette and blackjack with a banker only through a concession from the individual state. Whether a specific offer is permitted is shown solely by its entry on the whitelist.