Checking a Licence in the Public Register, Including What 'White Label' Means

The four downloads

The Commission publishes the register as downloadable data files rather than only as a search box. The set is:

• business-licence-register-businesses.csv — the licensed companies themselves.
• business-licence-register-licences.csv — the licences held, by activity. This is by far the largest file, because one company commonly holds several.
• business-licence-register-trading-names.csv — the names a licensee trades under.
• business-licence-register-domain-names.csv — the website addresses attached to each account.

All four are also offered together as a single zip and as one consolidated spreadsheet that holds the business, domain and trading-name data in one file.

For the question most people actually have — is this website licensed in Britain — the domain names file is the one that answers it. Searching a company name first is the common mistake, because the company name is frequently not the name on the website.

The method

1. Take the bare domain from the address bar, without the protocol and without a www prefix.

2. Search the domain names file for it.

3. Read across to the licensee the domain is listed against — which may be a company you have never heard of.

4. Check that licensee in the licences file for the activities it is licensed for: a site offering slots and live tables needs a remote casino operating licence, and a site also taking bets needs a remote betting licence.

5. Check the status recorded against the licence.

The register updates within 24 hours when a licence ends, so a domain missing from the file on a site that is live and accepting British customers is the result worth acting on.

Why the company is not the brand

Two legitimate arrangements separate the two, and they are different from each other.

A trading name is the licensee operating under another name. Same company, same licence, different sign over the door, recorded in the trading names file.

A white label is a different thing: a third party's brand operating on the licensee's licence and infrastructure. The brand does the marketing and owns the look of the site; the licensee holds the licence and runs the regulated activity underneath it. The Commission's guidance on licensees' responsibilities for third parties is unambiguous about where the obligation lands: the responsibility for compliance of all operating gambling websites, including white labelled sites, sits with the licence holder and cannot be transferred to any other party. The licensee is also expected to conduct adequate due diligence on the third party to establish that it is competent and reliable, and to keep sufficient oversight and controls in place to ensure activities are carried out in accordance with the licence conditions. Failure to maintain adequate control of third parties can lead to regulatory action including suspension or loss of the operating licence.

For a player this has a practical reading. A white-label brand is not a lesser form of licensing — the licence is a real licence and the conditions apply in full — but the entity that owes the obligations, holds the customer funds and answers to the regulator is the licensee, not the brand. That is the name to note before depositing, and the name that matters if something goes wrong.

What the register does not tell you

It records licences, licensees, trading names and domains. It is not a quality rating, it says nothing about withdrawal speed or terms, and it does not record which brands share a platform or a wallet. And it is a record of the present state: a domain listed today was not necessarily listed last year, and vice versa.