An offshore gaming licence authorises an operator to conduct gaming — it does not authorise that operator to accept players from anywhere. Every offshore regime carries a list of excluded territories, and the practical value of a licence depends as much on what is on that list as on what the licence costs.
This page documents where the two main offshore regimes reach, where they do not, and why the boundaries fall where they do.
Excluded territories under an Anjouan licence
Anjouan publishes an explicit exclusion list. Licensees may not accept players from:
- Australia
- Austria
- Comoros Islands
- France
- Germany
- Netherlands
- Spain
- United Kingdom
- United States
- All FATF-blacklisted countries
The Anjouan Offshore Finance Authority can designate further jurisdictions.
The pattern is consistent: every territory on the list operates its own licensing regime with enforcement powers. The exclusions are not arbitrary — they mark where another regulator already claims jurisdiction. The regime itself is documented on our Anjouan licence page.
Why regulated markets are excluded
A national licensing regime works by making it a condition of the licence that the operator serves only that market under those rules. Where a country enforces this — through payment blocking, ISP-level restrictions, advertising bans or direct action against operators — an offshore licence offers no protection.
Excluding those territories is therefore not a limitation the offshore jurisdiction imposes for its own sake. It is a recognition that the licence cannot deliver market access where another authority has already closed it.
Where an offshore licence is used in practice
What remains after the exclusions is substantial: much of Latin America, large parts of Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe outside the EU regulated markets, and Canada outside Ontario.
These are markets where either no national licensing regime exists, where one exists but is not exclusive, or where enforcement is limited. The commercial logic of an offshore licence rests on those conditions — which is why regulatory change in any single large market moves the whole segment.
The Nordic position
The Nordic countries illustrate the distinction clearly.
Denmark, Sweden and Norway each operate national regimes. Denmark licenses through Spillemyndigheden; Sweden through Spelinspektionen; Norway maintains a state monopoly model. In each case the national licence carries conditions — including participation in national self-exclusion registers — that bind only the operators holding it.
Operators serving Nordic players from offshore licences do so outside those regimes. Our Danish-language section documents what this means from the player's side, and our English coverage sets out what a licence does and does not protect.
How this affects licence choice
For an operator, the exclusion list is the first filter, not the last.
A licence that costs less but excludes the target market is not cheaper. A licence that costs more but reaches it is not more expensive. Cost per addressable market, rather than headline licence fee, is the number that matters — and it is the number licence brokers rarely present.
Our jurisdiction pages set out what each regime costs and requires: the Curaçao framework after the LOK and the single Anjouan licence. The jurisdictions hub compares them side by side.
What changes a market
Three developments move a market in or out of reach:
A new national regime. When a country introduces exclusive licensing, the market closes to offshore operators — usually with a transition period.
Enforcement escalation. A regime that exists on paper but is not enforced functions differently from one that blocks payments.
Regulator designation. Both Curaçao and Anjouan reserve the right to add territories to their exclusion lists in response to international pressure or FATF designations.
Page last reviewed: 2 August 2026