Most of the licences on the Commission's register belong to businesses. A smaller group belongs to people. These are personal licences, and they exist because the Gambling Act 2005 treats some roles in the gambling industry as important enough that the individual in the role should be assessed and licensed, in addition to the company they work for.
Operating and personal licences
An operating licence is held by a business and authorises it to carry on a gambling activity, such as the Casino, Bingo or betting activities described on our licence types page. A personal licence is held by an individual. The two work together. A company with an operating licence employs people, and some of them need personal licences for the roles they fill.
The Commission publishes both. Its public registers page lists gambling businesses, personal licences, regulatory actions, public statements and premises as separate sections. Each section has its own search. This site concentrates on the business register, since that is where an online casino is checked. The personal register is useful in a narrower set of cases, such as confirming that a named person holds a valid licence.
The two kinds of personal licence
The Act describes two kinds.
- Personal management licence. For people who hold key management roles in a gambling business, the kind of role where decisions about how the business meets its licence conditions are made.
- Personal functional licence. For people who carry out specified functions in a gambling business, rather than manage it.
The Commission's guidance sets out which roles and activities fall under each, and the list is not the same for every kind of gambling. We describe the idea and send you to that guidance for the detail, because it is the source of record and it can change. This site does not give legal advice on whether a particular role needs a licence.
Who needs one, and who does not
Personal licences are mainly a staffing matter for businesses. A player does not need one to gamble, and a business customer does not need one to use a gambling service. The people who may need them are those employed in or running a licensed gambling business, in the roles the Commission specifies.
For a reader checking a casino, the question is usually the other way round: is the company licensed? That is answered by the operating licence, and the personal licences of its staff are an internal matter unless something goes wrong. When the Commission takes action against a business, it can also act against individuals, and enforcement against a person can appear on the regulatory actions register. Our UKGC fines and sanctions page explains how to read those entries.
How the status values read for a person
The register uses the same status vocabulary for personal licences as for business ones. The definitions, as the Commission gives them, read like this in plain words.
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Active | In force and up to date |
| Pending | Applied for, or being varied, and not yet active |
| Suspended | Suspended by the Commission pending investigation |
| Revoked | Removed after regulatory action or a breach of conditions |
| Surrendered | Given up by the holder as no longer required |
| Lapsed | Ended because of liquidation, sequestration, bankruptcy or incapacity |
| Expired | Reached its end date without a new application |
Forfeited, where a court orders the licence to stop having effect, and Revoked for non payment of fee also appear in the Commission's definitions. A person whose licence is not Active cannot act in the licensed role.
How to check
- Go to the Commission's public registers page and choose the personal licences register.
- Search for the person by name. Names can be common, so use any additional detail the register allows.
- Open the entry and read the status.
- Compare what you find with what you were told.
If you instead want to confirm a business, use the register of gambling businesses and search by account number, business name, trading name or domain name. Our guide to checking a UKGC licence covers that route step by step.
The register is public information, but the people on it are private individuals, so use it for a genuine purpose such as confirming a licence. Data you take from it is subject to data protection law, and the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk explains the rules on handling personal data.
Where personal licences meet the rest of the register
The activities that an operating licence covers are explained on separate pages: remote casino, remote betting and remote bingo. The licensed brands built on those activities are listed on the licensed casinos page, and each holder has an operators entry that restates what the register shows, as read on 9 November 2026.
Gambling help
Gambling is for adults aged 18 and over. If you want to talk, the GamCare National Gambling Helpline is free on 0808 8020 133, 24 hours a day, and there is more on the GamCare site. GAMSTOP lets you exclude yourself from licensed sites, and BeGambleAware has further guidance.