Malta: the register people ask about most

What the MGA does differently

The Malta Gaming Authority keeps a public directory carrying licence holders, kind of licence, status and the approved brands. What separates it from Curaçao and Anjouan is less the directory than what sits behind it: requirements on segregating player balances, on reporting, and on a complaints route that ends at the authority rather than at the operator.

For a reader in Switzerland the last point is the one that matters most in practice. In a dispute over a withdrawal there is a named place at the MGA to turn to. With the other two registers that road is markedly thinner in practice.

Why no MGA number appears here all the same

The twelve entries in this ranking share one thing that has nothing to do with licence quality: they settle wholly or partly in coin. That part of the market has settled at Curaçao and Anjouan — the two registers that allow such models without approving every unit one at a time.

A comparison that wanted an MGA number in this list would have to invent one. So what stands here instead is what can be evidenced, and the gap is named rather than filled. Anyone who makes a Malta licence a condition is looking in a different part of the market — and should expect there that the cashier is kept in francs or euros rather than in a settlement unit.

What a register can do at all

A register answers one question reliably: whether an entry exists for a number and what it contains. It does not answer whether a house processes a withdrawal promptly, how it handles a dispute, or whether it will still exist tomorrow. That limit holds for Malta exactly as it does for Curaçao and Anjouan — the difference lies not in what the entry says but in what sits behind the entry in the way of requirements.

For the arithmetic on this page that means: the authority itself is not an input. What is counted is whether a number can be found, what status it carries, whether a company is named and when the entry was last read. An entry from Anjouan with a fresh reading date therefore scores higher than an older one from Curaçao — not because one authority is better, but because the evidence is fresher. Anyone who thinks a different weighting is right can take it up with the arithmetic; that is exactly why it stands out in the open.

How to look up an MGA number

1. Find the number in the footerMGA numbers take the form MGA/B2C/…/… with an issue date behind them. If the footer carries only «licensed in Malta» with no number, there is nothing to look up.
2. Check the authority's directoryThe public register carries licence holders and the approved brands. The brand in front of you has to be there — otherwise the licence does not cover it.

The procedure is therefore the same as at Curaçao and Anjouan: take the number, open the register, find the brand or the domain inside the entry. Only the form of the number and the address of the register change.

Common questions