Legal casino gambling age in CuracaoCuraçao is a small Caribbean island that for three decades has been one of the world’s best-known licensing centres for online gambling. Under the National Ordinance on Offshore Games of Hazard of 1993, a handful of private master licence holders issued sub-licences to thousands of websites that served players abroad, with little direct supervision by the state. That system was replaced on 24 December 2024, when the National Ordinance on Games of Chance (Landsverordening op de kansspelen, LOK) entered into force. The LOK abolished master licences, turned the former Gaming Control Board into an independent regulator, the Curaçao Gaming Authority (CGA), and introduced direct licences with statutory fees, local substance rules and player protection duties. Land-based casinos and lotteries are regulated separately under older legislation, also supervised by the CGA. The reform was strongly encouraged by the government of the Netherlands, with which Curaçao shares a kingdom.
Key points
- Curaçao is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Gambling regulation is a matter for Curaçao’s own government and parliament, not for the Netherlands.
- The National Ordinance on Games of Chance (published as A° 2024 N° 157) was approved by parliament on 17 December 2024 and entered into force on 24 December 2024. It prohibits organising any game of chance in or from Curaçao without a CGA licence.
- The CGA issues licences directly to business-to-consumer (B2C) operators and business-to-business (B2B) suppliers and publishes a public licence register and an enforcement register.
- There is no tax on gross gaming revenue. B2C online licensees pay fixed statutory fees (EUR 22,960 a year to the CGA and EUR 24,490 a year to the treasury) and ordinary profit tax.
- Licensees must run a complaints procedure and offer players alternative dispute resolution (ADR) at their own cost. Local help for gambling problems is provided by the Fundashon pa Maneho di Adikshon (FMA).
Last reviewed: 6 October 2026.
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Constitutional context
Until 2010 Curaçao was part of the Netherlands Antilles. According to Statistics Netherlands (CBS), a constitutional reform of the Kingdom of the Netherlands on 10 October 2010 dissolved the Netherlands Antilles. Curaçao, like Aruba and Sint Maarten, became an autonomous country within the Kingdom, while Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba became special municipalities of the Netherlands. The Dutch government describes the Kingdom as made up of four countries: Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten and the Netherlands. CBS puts Curaçao’s population at a little over 156,000 in 2025.
A “constituent country” in this sense has its own parliament (the Staten), government and laws. Laws of the former Netherlands Antilles continued to apply in Curaçao after 2010 unless replaced, which is why the 1993 offshore gaming ordinance remained in force until 2024. In a 2022 reply to parliamentary questions, the Dutch Minister for Legal Protection stated that the licensing of and supervision over online gambling are an autonomous responsibility of Curaçao, while the Netherlands offers support where asked (Aanhangsel Handelingen 2021–2022, no. 3456). The Netherlands has nonetheless had considerable influence through financial support arrangements, discussed below.
Historical development
The legal basis of the offshore sector was the National Ordinance on Offshore Games of Hazard (Landsverordening buitengaatse hazardspelen, LBH, often abbreviated NOOGH in English), adopted on 8 June 1993 and published as P.B. 1993, no. 63. Article 1 empowered the Governor to license the operation of games of hazard “on the international market”, offered by telecommunication. Licences could be granted only to legal entities established in the Netherlands Antilles, were not transferable, and carried an annual fee set by decree. The explanatory memorandum stated that only persons outside the territory of the Netherlands Antilles could take part.
In practice the LBH produced the master licence and sub-licence system. A small number of private companies held master licences and granted sub-licences to other operators, who could then run online casinos and betting sites under the master licence. An investigation by Play the Game (September 2026) reports that four companies held master licences and cites reporting by the Dutch outlet Follow the Money that, according to its sources, more than 10,000 domains were linked to the old licences by 2021. The Dutch government criticised this arrangement in 2022 as “a non-transparent system of master and sub-licence holders” in which effective control and supervision were lacking (Aanhangsel Handelingen 2021–2022, no. 3456).
The regulator’s role grew in stages. According to the CGA, the Gaming Control Board (GCB) was established as a foundation on 19 April 1999, following recommendations in the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force’s 1998 mutual evaluation. It initially supervised land-based casinos only. It took over the licensing of the numbers lottery in 2017 and anti-money laundering supervision of all gaming sectors in February 2019. In 2019 responsibility for offshore licences passed to the Minister of Finance, and from March 2020 the GCB was mandated to supervise online gaming on the Minister’s behalf (CGA).
The transition to direct licensing began before the new law was passed. The GCB’s licensing portal accepted direct licence applications from 15 November 2023 and asked sub-licensees to register between 1 November 2023 and 31 March 2024; sub-licensees who applied by that deadline were to be converted into provisional licence holders when the LOK came into force. Trade press reported that master licences would expire between August 2024 and January 2025 without renewal, and that sub-licensees with applications on file could receive a temporary “certificate of operation” in the meantime (NEXT.io, July 2024).
Legal framework
The National Ordinance on Games of Chance (LOK)
Curaçao’s parliament approved the LOK on 17 December 2024 by 13 votes to 6 (iGaming Business). The published ordinance is dated 20 December 2024 (A° 2024 N° 157), and both the CGA and the law firm Helix Partners, writing in the Legal 500 country guide, give 24 December 2024 as the date of entry into force. Its main features are:
- General prohibition. Article 1.2 prohibits organising any game of chance “in or from Curaçao”, or providing the opportunity to take part, without or in breach of a licence from the CGA.
- Protected groups. Article 1.4 forbids licensees to offer games to minors or to “vulnerable persons”, a term that includes anyone under 18.
- Remote games of chance. Chapter 5 sets out the licence for online games, including a two-phase assessment, local substance requirements (article 5.12), complaint handling and ADR (article 5.3) and fees (articles 5.18 and 5.19).
- Non-profit games. Chapter 4 allows charitable lotteries, bingo and the local game bon ku ne, notified to the CGA, up to ten times a year with prizes of up to NAf 250,000 per event or five times a year up to NAf 500,000 (article 4.1).
- Reserved chapters. Chapters 7 to 11, intended for lotteries, the state lottery, casino games, horse racing and other games, are marked as “reserved” in the published text. Those sectors therefore remain governed by the older legislation described below.
The LOK is enforced through administrative and criminal law. According to Helix Partners, article 13.40 makes unlicensed offering a criminal offence, punishable by up to one year’s detention and a fifth-category fine, or, where committed intentionally, up to four years’ imprisonment and a sixth-category fine. The CGA’s compliance and enforcement policy lists administrative fines, orders subject to penalty payments, orders under administrative coercion, suspension or revocation of licences and referral to the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Land-based casinos and lotteries
Land-based casinos are licensed by the CGA. According to its casino page, only Curaçao public or private limited companies may apply; a casino must be an amenity of a hotel aimed at the international tourism market, with at least 150 rooms (six existing establishments are exempt); and licences run for a maximum of three years and cannot be transferred. The CGA’s land-based casino register of 28 July 2026 lists ten casinos, all attached to hotels.
Lotteries rest on colonial-era statutes. The National Lottery (Landsloterij) is a public-law entity under the Minister of Finance, governed by the National Lottery Ordinance 1949; its draws are overseen by the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The popular numbers game Wega di Number, lotto, scratch cards and lotteries of goods are regulated under the Lottery Ordinance 1909. The CGA has licensed numbers lottery operators since March 2017; licences are valid for one calendar year and are available only to residents of Curaçao (CGA).
Regulator and licensing model
Curaçao operates a licensing model: private companies may offer gambling if they hold a licence from the regulator. On 24 December 2024 the LOK formally renamed the Gaming Control Board as the Curaçao Gaming Authority and made it an independent administrative authority (CGA). Political responsibility for the CGA moved from the Minister of Finance to the Minister of Justice on 19 August 2025, according to a CGA press release of 14 October 2025, which also reported that its Supervisory Board had resigned in mid-September 2025.
Licence types
- B2C gaming licence for remote games of chance, held by operators that offer casino games or betting to players.
- B2B supplier licence for providers of critical goods and services, such as game software and platforms.
- Certificates for non-critical suppliers, listed by the CGA under article 5.17 of the LOK.
Applicants must be companies registered in Curaçao with at least one resident managing director (article 2.1). B2C applications pass through an integrity and financial phase and then a full compliance phase; Helix Partners describes a process of up to about six months, with provisional licences valid for up to six months and extendable by a further six (Legal 500). Article 5.12 also requires local “substance”: key staff and office space in Curaçao. On 23 January 2026 the CGA announced that the Minister of Justice had postponed this requirement until 1 April 2027 under article 5.12(6) (CGA).
Fees
Fees are set in the ordinance itself. Under article 5.18 an online gaming licence application costs EUR 4,592, plus EUR 150 for each ultimate beneficial owner. Under article 5.19 a remote gaming licensee pays EUR 22,960 a year to the CGA for supervision and EUR 24,490 a year to the treasury (LOK). Helix Partners reports an annual supplier licence fee of EUR 24,490 and a charge of EUR 250 per domain or app (Legal 500). Article 6.3 earmarks shares of the amounts collected: 3% for a sports fund, 2% for a fund protecting vulnerable persons, 1% for organisations combating gambling addiction and 5% for the old-age and widows’ and orphans’ pension funds.
Number of licensees
According to iGaming Business, the Minister of Finance, Javier Silvania, said during budget debates in December 2024 that 220 licences had already been granted. Play the Game, citing Random Consulting, reports 617 licences under the LOK as of late July 2026. The CGA’s online licence register, updated on 2 October 2026, lists several hundred B2C and B2B entries, with the status of each, including revoked licences and applications still under assessment. The CGA warns that its overviews “do not guarantee the current validity” of a licence. Its separate enforcement register records licence revocations and non-extensions, but states that it does not include every enforcement measure.
Online gambling: what is permitted and how it is enforced
Online casino games and betting are lawful when offered under a CGA licence. Curaçao’s market is overwhelmingly export-oriented: a Curaçao licence authorises an operator to offer games from Curaçao, but it does not make the service lawful in other countries, many of which require their own licence. The LOK, unlike the 1993 ordinance, does not in the text we reviewed contain an express rule limiting participation to persons outside the island. We found no CGA guidance specifically addressing online play by residents of Curaçao.
Enforcement. The CGA publishes public warning notices about websites that falsely claim a Curaçao licence or offer games illegally; recent notices on its publications page include two in February 2026 and two in March 2026 about illegal numbers lottery sales and an unauthorised bingo offering. In July 2026 the CGA issued rules for winding down operations after a licence is surrendered, revoked or refused: the operator must stop using the CGA seal and accepting players, and remains liable for player balances (AGB). We found no legal provision for blocking websites through internet service providers and no rule requiring banks to block payments to unlicensed sites.
Advertising. According to Helix Partners, licensees may advertise, but marketing must not target minors or vulnerable persons, must not make false or misleading claims about the chances of winning or present gambling as a solution to financial problems, must not conceal the licensing requirement or misrepresent the Curaçao jurisdiction, and must carry responsible gaming messages. Affiliates are not licensed or specifically regulated.
The Dutch government’s involvement
The Netherlands has no formal regulatory power over Curaçao’s gambling sector, but it has used its leverage as a lender. Play the Game reports that by 2020 the Netherlands had made reform of gambling supervision one of the conditions of COVID-19 liquidity support to Curaçao. In the 2022 parliamentary reply cited above, the Dutch government said that the agreed “country package” (landspakket) for Curaçao included an independent online gambling regulator with licensing and enforcement powers, checks on operators targeting regulated markets, and the collection of taxes and fees.
After the LOK came into force, Curaçao’s Minister of Finance, Javier Silvania, met the Dutch Minister of Justice and Security, David van Weel, and the State Secretary for Kingdom Relations, Zsolt Szabó. The two governments agreed that the CGA and the Netherlands Gambling Authority (Kansspelautoriteit) should work closely together and scheduled half-yearly consultations on implementation (NEXT.io, 9 January 2025; Yogonet).
Position of players
The LOK is directed at those who organise or facilitate gambling. According to Helix Partners, it imposes no criminal or administrative penalty on players merely for taking part in an unlawful game, and we found no reported prosecution or fine of a player in Curaçao for gambling online. The minimum age is 18: the LOK treats anyone under 18 as a vulnerable person and forbids licensees to let minors play.
Players of CGA-licensed sites have statutory complaint rights. Under article 5.3 of the LOK, a player may complain to the licensee within six months, the licensee must respond within four weeks, and the licensee must at all times offer access to alternative dispute resolution, at its own cost. Under article 5.5 licensees accept the jurisdiction of the courts of Curaçao. The CGA itself states that it does not handle individual disputes between players and operators, but that reports of possible breaches of the rules may be sent to it (CGA).
Taxation
Operators
Curaçao does not levy a gambling tax on stakes or gross gaming revenue (GGR, the amount staked minus winnings paid out). Online licensees instead pay the fixed statutory fees described above, which the iGaming Times country profile also notes are charged in place of a revenue-based duty. Licensees are Curaçao companies and are subject to ordinary profit tax. According to the Curaçao Tax Department, the general rate is 15% on the first NAf 500,000 of taxable profit and 22% on the excess. A preferential 2% rate for companies in economic zones (e-zones) applied only up to and including 2022. We could not confirm a gaming-specific profit tax rate from an official source.
Players
We found no official guidance from the Curaçao Tax Department on the taxation of gambling winnings, and readers should consult the department directly.
Consumer protection and responsible gambling
The LOK builds player protection into the licence. Beyond the ban on serving minors and vulnerable persons and the ADR duty, licensees must identify players. Helix Partners summarises the CGA’s 2025 responsible gaming requirements as including age verification, a dedicated responsible gaming section on the website, self-assessment tests, monitoring of player behaviour, cooling-off periods from 24 hours to three months, self-exclusion for one to ten years or permanently, deposit limits whose increases take effect only after 24 hours, and staff training, overseen by a designated responsible gaming officer (Legal 500). The CGA’s anti-money laundering regulations of January 2025 apply to both land-based and online casinos.
For land-based casinos, the CGA’s Responsible Gaming Guidelines, in place since 15 August 2012, allow (temporary) self-exclusion from Curaçao casinos (CGA). There is no single national self-exclusion register covering every licensee; online self-exclusion operates operator by operator. Residents can obtain counselling and treatment for gambling addiction from the Fundashon pa Maneho di Adikshon (FMA), which the CGA lists on its responsible gaming page (telephone 461-5977 or 670-5544). Our responsible gambling guide sets out general steps for keeping gambling under control.
Recent and upcoming developments
- 2023–2024: transition. Direct licence applications opened in November 2023, sub-licensees had to apply by 31 March 2024, and master licences expired between August 2024 and January 2025 (GCB portal; NEXT.io).
- June 2025: capacity concerns. Local news site nu.cw reported that the CGA had about 30 staff facing roughly 1,000 licence applications, and that its director had allowed two years to recruit more personnel.
- August to October 2025: governance changes. Responsibility for the CGA moved to the Minister of Justice on 19 August 2025, and the Supervisory Board resigned in mid-September 2025 (CGA).
- July 2026: enforcement and wind-down rules. The CGA published its compliance and enforcement policy for online gaming (version dated 31 March 2026) and wind-down instructions for exiting licensees.
- September 2026: portal security incident. On 17 September 2026 the CGA disclosed unauthorised access to its online gaming portal; it said the breach had been contained, that its investigation had not identified any compromise of its core technical infrastructure, and that a forensic investigation was under way (CGA).
- Pending. The LOK chapters on lotteries, casinos and horse racing remain reserved, so land-based gambling continues under older legislation. We found no published bill to complete those chapters as of 6 October 2026.
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The listings below are generated automatically from our casino database. They do not by themselves show that an operator holds a licence from the Curaçao Gaming Authority, or that its services are lawful where a reader lives. Readers should check an operator’s status in the CGA’s licence register before playing.
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Sources and further reading
- Curaçao, Landsverordening op de kansspelen (A° 2024 N° 157) (2024).
- Netherlands Antilles, Landsverordening buitengaatse hazardspelen (P.B. 1993, no. 63) (1993).
- Curaçao Gaming Authority, About us (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Curaçao Gaming Authority, Online Gaming (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Curaçao Gaming Authority, License Register, including the online gaming licence register (2 October 2026), land-based casino register (28 July 2026) and enforcement register (15 September 2026) (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Curaçao Gaming Authority, Casinos (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Curaçao Gaming Authority, National Lottery and Numbers Lottery (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Curaçao Gaming Authority, Responsible Gaming (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Curaçao Gaming Authority, Compliance and Enforcement Policy (Online Gaming) (2026).
- Curaçao Gaming Authority, Press release, 14 October 2025 (2025).
- Curaçao Gaming Authority, Postponement of local substance requirements (2026).
- Curaçao Gaming Authority, CGA investigates unauthorized access to its online gaming portal (2026).
- Curaçao Gaming Authority, Regulations for the Combating of Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (2025).
- Gaming Control Board Curaçao, License Management Portal: information (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Curaçao Tax Department (Belastingdienst Curaçao), Winstbelasting (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, Aanhangsel van de Handelingen 2021–2022, no. 3456: answers to questions on supervision of the online gambling sector in Curaçao (2022).
- Statistics Netherlands (CBS), The Dutch Caribbean 15 years after the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles (2025).
- Government of the Netherlands, What are the different parts of the Kingdom of the Netherlands? (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Michael Muscat (Helix Partners), Curaçao: Gambling Law, Legal 500 Country Comparative Guides (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Play the Game, The island that licenses illegal betting around the world (2026).
- iGaming Business, Curaçao parliament approves LOK gambling licensing framework (2024).
- NEXT.io, Curaçao re-opens application portal ahead of master licence expiry (2024).
- NEXT.io, Curaçao cooperates with Dutch government on LOK implementation (2025).
- Yogonet, Curaçao partners with Netherlands to overhaul gambling sector under new law (2025).
- Nu.cw, Capaciteitszorgen bij toezicht op online goksector (2025).
- AGB, Curacao issues wind-down rules for gaming license holders (2026).
- iGaming Times, Curacao Gambling Licence and Regulation (2026) (accessed 6 October 2026).
