What Is the Anjouan Gaming License?
The Anjouan gaming license is a B2C or B2B authorisation issued by ALSI, valid for one year and renewable annually, which covers online casino, sportsbook, live casino and next-gen games. It sits in the offshore tier alongside Curaçao and Kahnawake, with an application cost near £17,000 and an approval window of three to four weeks.
The sections below cover the five things worth knowing about it:
- The regulator behind it
- B2C and B2B licence types
- Cost and approval timeline
- Annual renewal rules
- Covered products and mandatory policies
Who issues and supervises the license today?
ALSI, the Anjouan Licensing and Supervision Institution, handles the licence end to end. Its remit covers three functions: evaluating applications from operators and their key persons, issuing the licence once the documentation clears, and supervising licensees on an ongoing basis through compliance reporting. That ongoing supervision is the part that matters to players, since a licence number alone means little if nobody is checking the operator behind it. ALSI also processes the annual renewals, which is where a licensee’s compliance record is reviewed.
What are the types of licenses?
Two licence types exist, split by who the operator serves. The B2C licence is the player-facing one and covers casino games, slot machines, online betting, and live casino with real dealers, so a single authorisation lets a brand run its entire product. The B2B licence covers software providers instead- the studios and platform suppliers that build the games rather than take the bets. When you check a brand’s footer, the number you want to see is a B2C licence; a B2B reference belongs to its supplier, not to the casino you are depositing at.
How much does the Anjouan license cost and how long does it last?
The application runs at roughly £17,000, with annual renewal at about £13,300 and a B2B Recognition Certificate at around £9,500 per year. Approval typically lands within three to four weeks. Put next to the alternatives, that pricing sits in the mid-range while the timeline is the shortest available, which is precisely the trade-off operators are buying: a licence that costs less than a European one and arrives in weeks rather than months.
How often does the license need to be renewed?
The licence is valid for one year and requires annual renewal, with the process usually taking two to four weeks. Renewal is not a formality, since ALSI reviews compliance reporting before reissuing, so a brand that has let its AML or responsible gaming obligations slip can be held up. For players, a licence displayed with a current expiry is a better signal than one with no date at all, and a lapsed number in a footer is worth treating as a warning.
What activities does this license cover?
A single B2C licence authorises four product categories:
- Online casino
- Betting
- Live Casino
- Next Gen Games (Crash, Bingo, Keno, Plinko, Slingo, Scratch Cards)
That breadth explains why Anjouan brands tend to launch with a full lobby rather than a slots-only offering, and why crash and instant titles appear alongside the classic categories from day one.
What are the mandatory elements a casino must have to get approval from ALSI?
Four documented elements are mandatory before a licence is granted. The operator needs an AML and KYC policy setting out how it verifies identity and monitors transactions; responsible gaming tools, specifically mandatory age verification, self-exclusion, regulated deposit limits and staff training; a published privacy policy covering how player data is stored and used; and full terms and conditions. These are the pages worth opening before you deposit, because an Anjouan licensee that cannot show them is either new or non-compliant.
Why Do Operators Choose the Anjouan License?
Operators choose Anjouan for speed and cost above all and all four factors driving the choice are:
- Approval within 4 weeks
- Starting cost of £21,500
- 15+ cryptocurrencies supported
- SSL encryption requirement
License issuance within 4 weeks
Anjouan issues within four weeks, against roughly six months for Curaçao, six to nine months for the MGA, and six months for Kahnawake. For a new operator, that difference is decisive: a brand licensed in Anjouan can be live and taking deposits in the time a Malta application spends in queue. It also explains why so many of the new casinos UK players encounter carry an Anjouan number, and why the licence has become the default entry route for launches.
Starting cost of £21,500
The realistic cost of getting live is around £21,500, built from three items: company formation at £2,300, the Anjouan licence at £17,000, and key person authorisation at £2,000. Against an MGA licence, where fees and capital requirements run several times higher, that figure lets smaller operators enter the market at all. The flip side is that a low barrier means a wider spread of quality among licensees, which is exactly why the checks further down this page matter.
Crypto-friendly environment
The framework accommodates crypto rather than restricting it, and Anjouan brands typically support more than 15 cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dogecoin among them, accept blockchain transactions directly, and clear withdrawals inside 8 hours. For UK players that combination delivers what the domestic market does not: a payout route that bypasses banking hours entirely, no card declines on gambling transactions, and privacy on the money trail.
SSL encryption on sites
Licensees are expected to run SSL encryption, which protects financial and personal information in transit between your browser and the casino. This is the baseline rather than a selling point, and it is easy to verify yourself: the padlock beside the https in the address bar tells you the certificate is live. A site asking for card details without it should be closed, licence or unlicensed.
What Requirements Does a Casino Need to Get Approval from Anjouan?
A casino needs four things to get the final green light:
- Company validity documents
- Anti-money-laundering standards
- Annual renewal obligations
- Evidence of financial standing
Documentation for company validity
The paperwork covers five areas: certified incorporation documents for the company, proof of domain ownership for the site being licensed, a detailed business plan describing the gaming content on offer, agreements with game providers together with RNG audit certificates proving the games are tested, and the published terms and conditions, privacy policy and responsible gaming policy. The RNG certificates are the part players benefit from most, since they are what separates a licensed lobby from an unaudited one.
Compliance with anti-money-laundering standards
Applicants must document AML policies covering identity verification, transaction monitoring and reporting, alongside anti-fraud measures for bonus abuse, multi-accounting and payment fraud. In practice, this is why an Anjouan casino that lets you register without documents will still ask for them on a large withdrawal: the licence permits frictionless sign-up but requires the operator to verify before paying out significant sums.
Annual renewal obligations
Renewal is annual and comes with compliance reports submitted to ALSI, covering how the operator has met its AML and responsible gaming obligations over the year. This is the mechanism that gives the licence ongoing weight rather than one-off value, and it is why checking the current status of a licence number carries more information than simply seeing one printed in a footer.
Evidence of financial standing
Operators must show proof of funds sufficient to cover player balances and operations, but there is no minimum share capital requirement. That absence is the defining feature of the licence: it opens the market to operators who could never fund an MGA application, which produces both the volume of new brands UK players see and the variance in how well they are run.
Which Parent Companies with an Anjouan License Stand Out?
Four worth recognising parent companies account for the bulk of the Anjouan brands reaching UK players:
- NovaForge LTD, 100+ brands
- GablaSol LTD, 5+ casinos
- NovaAxis Holdings, 5+ operators
- Win Top LTD, 5 casinos
NovaForge carries the scale, while NovaAxis holds the strongest independent player rating of the group at 8/10 on AskGamblers.
NovaForge LTD
NovaForge LTD holds Anjouan licence number ALSI-152406028-FI2 and operates 100+ brands, among them Atefia and X3Bet. The scale is the point: a parent running that many casinos has standardised its AML, KYC and payment processes across the portfolio, so a brand new NovaForge site inherits infrastructure rather than building it. The group also actively promotes responsible gambling, with self-exclusion tools available across its brands rather than by request only.
GablaSol LTD
GablaSol LTD runs 5+ active casinos, including Jack-pot and Jackpot Casino. Its distinguishing feature is clarity in the paperwork: the terms and conditions set out bonus and transaction rules in plain language, which is not the norm in this tier and makes it far easier to see what you are agreeing to. Customer support is informative and answered within one minute in our checks, a response time that beats most of the offshore market.
NovaAxis Holdings International Ltd
NovaAxis Holdings International Ltd manages more than 5 operators, with Forzabet, SpinLander and Motherland among them. Its brands average 8/10 on AskGamblers, which is the strongest independent player rating in this group and the most useful signal here, since it reflects actual payout and support experience rather than marketing. The group provides parental filters plus cooling-off periods and deposit limits, though those last two are handled through customer support rather than self-service.
Win Top LTD
Win Top LTD operates 5 online casinos, including Bananzia and Villaspin. On the technical side it runs SSL encryption together with SHA-256 hashing for data integrity, and documents AML policies across its brands. The security stack is the baseline you should expect rather than an advantage, so the more useful read on Win Top is its portfolio size: small enough to manage closely, established enough to have a record you can check.
How Does BestGamblingOffers Select the Best Casinos with an Anjouan License?
We run four checks on every Anjouan brand before it reaches our lists:
- Live SSL and SHA verification
- Licence validity and active status
- Player history on independent forums
- Track record of the parent network
Verification of up-to-date SSL and SHA technologies
We confirm the encryption is live rather than claimed, checking the browser for the lock icon beside the https and inspecting the certificate itself. It takes seconds and you can repeat it: click the padlock, and the certificate details tell you who issued it and when it expires. A brand advertising bank-grade security while serving pages over a lapsed certificate tells you what its other claims are worth.
Checking license validity and active status
We confirm the licence number in the footer corresponds to an actual operator and is currently active, not expired or belonging to a different entity. We also check whether the parent company behind the brand is genuinely the one listed, since a footer naming a reputable group is worth nothing if the licence traces elsewhere. This mismatch is more common than it should be and is the single most useful thing to verify yourself.
Investigating the brand’s history
We search independent forums, Casino.Guru and AskGamblers in particular, for player testimonials covering payouts, bonus disputes and account handling. Our lists include only operators with a good reputation and exclude those showing a pattern of complaints, specifically payment delays and account closures without justification. One complaint proves little; a pattern across months is the clearest predictor of how a brand will treat you.
Monitoring top networks
We track new launches from parent companies that already have a clean record, NovaForge, GablaSol LTD and NovaAxis Holdings International Ltd among them. A brand-new casino has no history of its own, so the network behind it is the only evidence available, and a launch from a group with a functioning payment record is a materially different proposition from one with no traceable parent at all.
Is It Ultimately Worth It for Brits to Choose Casinos with an Anjouan Gaming Licence?
For UK players who check the operator rather than the offer, yes, as the licence delivers what the domestic market blocks: registration without upfront KYC, 15+ cryptocurrencies with payouts within 8 hours, no stake or deposit caps, and welcome packages several times the UKGC norm. Those are real advantages, not marketing, and they come from the licence framework itself rather than from any individual brand’s generosity.
The caution is equally concrete. With no minimum share capital and a four-week approval, the licensee pool is wide, and quality varies more than under the MGA or the UKGC. There is no Financial Ombudsman route, no GamStop coverage, and if an operator stops paying, your recourse runs through ALSI rather than a British authority. That is the trade-off you accept in exchange for the flexibility.
What decides the outcome is not the licence but the operator holding it. A current licence number that traces to the parent company named in the footer, live SSL, a network with a payment record, and a clean history on Casino.Guru or AskGamblers separate the Anjouan brands worth joining from the ones to avoid. Run those four checks, or use a list where somebody has run them, and the licence works in your favour.
Yes, it is a genuine offshore licence issued by ALSI, the regulator of the autonomous island of Anjouan, covering casino, betting, live casino and next-gen games. It requires annual renewal and compliance reporting, though it offers no UK player protection or Financial Ombudsman route in a dispute.
Yes, these brands accept UK players and sit outside the GamStop scheme, so registration stays open even after self-exclusion. The trade-off is that UKGC safeguards do not apply, so the operator's own record on payouts and support becomes the thing worth checking first.
Approval typically lands within three to four weeks, against roughly six months for Curaçao and Kahnawake and six to nine months for the MGA. That speed is the licence's main draw for operators and explains why most new casinos reaching UK players carry an Anjouan number.
Check the footer for the licence number, confirm it traces to an active operator and that the parent company listed is genuinely the one holding it. Then click the padlock beside the https to confirm the SSL certificate is live, and search Casino.Guru or AskGamblers for payout complaints.