IAGR's licence checker and awareness week start 9 November

Last updated: 3 Nov 2026, 20:10 CET: first published

The International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR) has announced its first Illegal Gambling Awareness Week for 9–13 November 2026, built around one instruction: before you bet, check whether the site is licensed where you are playing. A free tool, CheckBeforeYouPlay.org, is due to launch on 9 November to help with that check.

IAGR calls the week "the first internationally coordinated effort to raise consumer awareness of the risks of unlicensed online gambling". It outlined the plan at a briefing during its Annual Conference in Lima, Peru, and the release is dated 26 October 2026. This is a preview of a scheduled campaign, so nothing below describes results.

What IAGR announced

• The week: 9–13 November 2026. It supports coordinated communications by IAGR's member jurisdictions.
• The materials: IAGR says campaign materials become available to all IAGR members on 6 November: 30-second and 15-second videos, social media content, a draft press release and talking points. The first package is in English and Spanish. The creative was developed by R&R Partners, a communications agency.
• What members can do: add their own branding, post campaign content daily during the week, issue local announcements and arrange media interviews. IAGR says it also wants consumer-protection bodies and responsible-gambling organisations to take part.
• Who takes part: the release names no regulator as taking part, and it says interested regulators and organisations can contact IAGR.

The CheckBeforeYouPlay.org tool

IAGR describes CheckBeforeYouPlay.org as a free licensing-information tool contributed by Sharp Vision, a Paris-based regulatory-technology company. According to the release, it launches on 9 November. A user enters a gambling site's URL and can check "available licensing information for covered IAGR member jurisdictions", drawing on "regulatory records and other verified public sources".

Three things the release does not say: which jurisdictions are covered, what the tool shows for a site it has no information on, and how complete its information is. We will not guess at any of them. When we checked on 3 November, the address returned an access-restricted response, so there was nothing public to look at and we describe nothing of how it works beyond IAGR's own words.

What "licensed where you are playing" means

The phrase carries the whole campaign. Our plain-language reading, not IAGR's: a gambling licence is issued by one jurisdiction and applies there. A site can hold a licence somewhere and still not be licensed in the country you are in, and a licence number or a regulator's badge in a site's footer does not tell you which. That is the gap IAGR's CEO Kevin Mullally points at: "A professional-looking website or a recognisable name can give consumers confidence without knowing whether the site is properly licensed in that location." He adds: "We want consumers to routinely check the licensing status of a site before opening an account or making a deposit."

IAGR President Ben Haden says the aim of coordinating consumer messages is that "we can help more people understand why local licensing matters and where to find reliable information before they engage with an operator."

Bonusjungle's reviews list the licence each operator states. That is not the same as a licence in your country, which is the question IAGR's campaign asks you to check. IAGR says the tool shows licensing information only for covered IAGR member jurisdictions.

The risks IAGR lists

IAGR says people who use unlicensed sites may face unpaid winnings, limited ways to settle a dispute, and misuse of their personal or financial information, and may lack the responsible-gambling protections that locally licensed operators must provide. It also says uninformed consumers may unknowingly fund criminal organisations. These are IAGR's statements about unlicensed gambling in general; the release does not name any site.

What you can already do

• Look up the regulator in your own country and use its public licence register, if it publishes one.
• Find the licence number a site states and check it on that regulator's own site, not through a link on the gambling site itself.
• Read our background on how a stated licence can differ from the real situation: the Comoros and Anjouan licences.

For related reading, see the Philippines' licensed-site checker app, Sweden's bans on firms offering gambling without a licence, UKGC research on players of illegal sites and the news hub.

What is still unclear

• Which jurisdictions CheckBeforeYouPlay.org covers, and what it shows when a site is not in its sources.
• Whether the tool goes live on 9 November as announced.
• Which regulators will run local campaigns, and in which languages beyond English and Spanish.

18+. Gambling can be addictive. If it stops being fun, see our responsible play page.

Updates

• 3 Nov 2026: first published.