Written for readers in Ireland

Playing from the Republic of Ireland: what is licensed and what is not

The British operators on the rest of this site are licensed to contract with customers in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which does not include the Republic. This page is written for readers in the Republic, where the law is at a different stage entirely.

Why this page exists at all

You have reached a page written for readers in the Republic of Ireland, and the reason it is separate from the rest of this site is contractual before it is legal. The British operators listed elsewhere here contract (in their own terms), with customers in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which does not include the Republic, so a reader in Cork following one of those links would reach a site that cannot open him an account.

The legal position is more interesting than the contractual one, because Ireland is in the middle of building a regime it did not have. The two halves are at completely different stages, and the gap between them is the whole of this page. Betting now has a «licensing regime» that is live: the Gambling Regulation Act 2024 commenced its main licensing and enforcement provisions on the fifth of February 2026, the Authority opened for betting on the ninth, and the old Revenue Commissioners licences that remote operators used to hold expired on the first of July 2026, so a bookmaker taking an Irish bet today needs an Irish licence and the penalty for taking one without reaches eight years. Online casino is at the opposite end: the licensing provisions for gaming have not been commenced at all, which means no online casino can hold an Irish licence yet, however much it might want one, and the position of an operator serving Irish players from abroad is uncertain rather than settled. The advertising obligations, unlike the gaming licences, are already in force.

The one operator on this site with an Irish licence

888 is the only brand in our catalogue holding an Irish licence of any kind. 888 Eire Limited holds GRAI-1090-RB-26-0001, a business-to-consumer remote betting licence issued on the thirty-first of July 2026 and running to the thirtieth of July 2029, registered under the trading names "888" and "888Sport", and that licence covers «sportsbook» and nothing else. For casino and poker, Irish residents of the same brand play under a Gibraltar licence held by the same Irish company, because no Irish gaming licence exists for them to hold, and the operator's own terms say so.

We have no tracking link for the Irish «sportsbook», so there is no button for it on this page. The brand is named here because it is the only GRAI «licensee» in our catalogue and a reader is entitled to know that; the link will appear when the programme issues one.

1. 

   Betway

   Licence on the public registerUKGC · Betway Limited (C39710), societa' maltese, 9 Empire Stadium

   Landing page: the British casino welcome page, /bwp/sosuk2025/en-gbFollowed from a British connection on 2026-11-08. We publish no bonus figure unless the four facts are on the operator's page.

   Open Betway

   Commercial link · 18+ · the operator's terms apply · licence read 07.11.2026

2. 

   888 Casino

   Licence on the public registerMGA · Virtual Digital Services Limited (Malta, reg. C90997, Level
   Listed for information only

   No link. listed for the record: the programme has not yet issued a British landing page for it

The operators we have taken off this page, and why

Until the eighth of November 2026 this page also carried twenty casinos that accept Irish players on licences from Anjouan, Tobique, Curaçao, Kahnawake and St Kitts, set out honestly as operators whose licence sits on no searchable «register». They are gone, and the reason is a rule this site now applies to Ireland the way it applies it to Ontario: a market page carries the operators that market has authorised, and nobody else. Ireland has authorised none of them, because the licensing provisions for gaming have not been commenced and the licence does not yet exist to be held. That is not an accusation against those twenty; it is a statement about a register that is empty, and an empty register is still the register. When the Authority opens gaming licences, the operators that hold one will appear here, and this paragraph will say so with the date.

What an Irish player should actually check

Three things, in this order, and all three can be done before registering, and whether the operator holds a GRAI licence, which matters for betting and does not yet exist for casino, and which company the terms name as the contracting party, because the group behind a brand often contracts through a different entity for Ireland than for Britain. And which currency the account is held in, because an account denominated in sterling or dollars will cost you a conversion on the way in and again on the way out, and the Gambling Regulatory Authority publishes its licensees, and the list is short and growing. For casino there is nothing to consult, which is the honest summary of the position until the gaming phase opens!

Help in Ireland

Problem Gambling Ireland, at problemgambling.ie, carries the counselling referrals and the self-help material, and Gamblers Anonymous Ireland runs meetings across the country. The Gambling Regulation Act 2024 provides for a national «self-exclusion» (a refusal the operator is obliged to honour) «register» (a list a public authority keeps and publishes), and it is not yet operating, so exclusion remains a matter of asking each operator separately.

By the UK Pound Casino editorial team · Last updated November 2026