- Joined
- Jan 20, 2004
- Location
- Pictland
In the course of our work on player complaints (PABs) we are occasionally presented with a textbook case of fake licensing trickery. Most recently Need4spins22.com has provided just such an example.
If you go to the website’s front page and follow their “License” link you’ll see something like this:
So far so good, the wording certainly follows the standard format. What about that actual license number though, "OGL/2024/1562/1139”?
If you go to the Curaçao Gaming Authority’s home site —
— and follow the “License Register” link you’ll get to a page that is a directory to their various registered licensees. The “Online Gaming Licenses” link is of interest here and that takes us to
In there is the registration of the license in question:
Now there are a few problems here: to begin with all we know is that need4spins22.com is claiming to be owned by "Data Link Digital B.V.” and that “Data Link Digital B.V.” has a Curaçao license under “Assessment”. This tells us nothing about which casinos "Data Link Digital B.V.” owns, so we don’t actually know that need4spins22.com has anything to do with "Data Link Digital B.V.” and the Curaçao Registry isn’t going to tell us that. This is a major weakness of the Curaçao licensing system: no way to go to it with a casino name and verify that casino is actually licensed there and see who holds that license (the parent company).
The other problem is that the dates don’t match. The casino site claims “the license was granted 23/07/2025” but the Curaçao registry says it was granted 23/01/2026 and that it expired 23/07/2026. So that’s not looking good.
The usual way to verify that a given gasino is properly licensed in Curaçao is to find the CGA license verification badge, typically on the site’s front page. It’ll look something like this:
The “cert.cga.cw” bit on that badge is significant because that’s where the license verification needs to be hosted. For example if you click on that particular verification badge your URL for the verification link is:
Those links are very long and very much not reader friendly.
Contrary to all of that need4spins22.com offers only this:
First thing: what is “curacao-certificate.org”? That’s certainly not anything to do with “cert.cga.cw", but we’ll get to that shortly.
What you get if you click on that is what looks like a proper Curaçao verification page:
Again though, a few things aren’t quite right. The license is for “needfourspins...” not “need4spins…”. Sure the company may have registered the “4” URL, but maybe they didn’t. There’s no way to know from the information on hand. And, key point here, anyone could have registered the “4” domain and just be spoofing off of the real “four” site. Conclusion: note this weirdness and investigate further.
Ok, so there’s the issue date here too. Certificate claims “granted on 23/07/2025” which does not match the 23/01/2026 date listed in the Registry on the official Curaçao site. Maybe a clerical glitch? Sure, but maybe also another little “gotcha” showing that something definitely isn’t kosher here.
Speaking of official sites, let’s have a look at the smoking gun shall we? We return to the “curacao-certificate.org” question: what is it? And why was the site’s license certificate there instead of being on cert.cga.cw?
For the “what is it” we checked the sites registration and — weirdness alert! — it was only registered a couple months ago. Not renewed a couple months ago, actually registered for the first time. Let’s call that fire alarm #1 because there’s no way that Curaçao is suddenly licensing some alt certification site in the last 60 days without telling everyone about it.
Secondly, if you look up the site’s registration you’ll see that everything is redacted and there is no reference to anything even remotely official looking. That ain’t what official government sites do so … fire alarm #2.
And finally there’s the fact that that one certificate is the only thing on “curacao-certificate.org”, it’s the landing page! A whole site dedicated to one license certificate? Defo fire alarm #3!
So, let’s recap:
So there it is, good job us because we’ve caught a rat. All this is what rogue casinos do, fake and lie to fool the unsuspecting player into handing over their cash. Player Beware!
If you go to the website’s front page and follow their “License” link you’ll see something like this:
So far so good, the wording certainly follows the standard format. What about that actual license number though, "OGL/2024/1562/1139”?
If you go to the Curaçao Gaming Authority’s home site —
Code:
https://www.cga.cw/home
You do not have permission to view link
Log in or register now.
which displays a PDF of registered Curaçao licensees including their company name, date of registration, date of expiry, etc:In there is the registration of the license in question:
Now there are a few problems here: to begin with all we know is that need4spins22.com is claiming to be owned by "Data Link Digital B.V.” and that “Data Link Digital B.V.” has a Curaçao license under “Assessment”. This tells us nothing about which casinos "Data Link Digital B.V.” owns, so we don’t actually know that need4spins22.com has anything to do with "Data Link Digital B.V.” and the Curaçao Registry isn’t going to tell us that. This is a major weakness of the Curaçao licensing system: no way to go to it with a casino name and verify that casino is actually licensed there and see who holds that license (the parent company).
The other problem is that the dates don’t match. The casino site claims “the license was granted 23/07/2025” but the Curaçao registry says it was granted 23/01/2026 and that it expired 23/07/2026. So that’s not looking good.
The usual way to verify that a given gasino is properly licensed in Curaçao is to find the CGA license verification badge, typically on the site’s front page. It’ll look something like this:
The “cert.cga.cw” bit on that badge is significant because that’s where the license verification needs to be hosted. For example if you click on that particular verification badge your URL for the verification link is:
Code:
https://cert.gcb.cw/certificate?id=ZXIKcGRpSTZJb|ZRVG10a1NYUIZIWEJWTldNNFFtOTFha1V2Y1VFO…Those links are very long and very much not reader friendly.
Contrary to all of that need4spins22.com offers only this:
First thing: what is “curacao-certificate.org”? That’s certainly not anything to do with “cert.cga.cw", but we’ll get to that shortly.
What you get if you click on that is what looks like a proper Curaçao verification page:
Again though, a few things aren’t quite right. The license is for “needfourspins...” not “need4spins…”. Sure the company may have registered the “4” URL, but maybe they didn’t. There’s no way to know from the information on hand. And, key point here, anyone could have registered the “4” domain and just be spoofing off of the real “four” site. Conclusion: note this weirdness and investigate further.
Ok, so there’s the issue date here too. Certificate claims “granted on 23/07/2025” which does not match the 23/01/2026 date listed in the Registry on the official Curaçao site. Maybe a clerical glitch? Sure, but maybe also another little “gotcha” showing that something definitely isn’t kosher here.
Speaking of official sites, let’s have a look at the smoking gun shall we? We return to the “curacao-certificate.org” question: what is it? And why was the site’s license certificate there instead of being on cert.cga.cw?
For the “what is it” we checked the sites registration and — weirdness alert! — it was only registered a couple months ago. Not renewed a couple months ago, actually registered for the first time. Let’s call that fire alarm #1 because there’s no way that Curaçao is suddenly licensing some alt certification site in the last 60 days without telling everyone about it.
Secondly, if you look up the site’s registration you’ll see that everything is redacted and there is no reference to anything even remotely official looking. That ain’t what official government sites do so … fire alarm #2.
And finally there’s the fact that that one certificate is the only thing on “curacao-certificate.org”, it’s the landing page! A whole site dedicated to one license certificate? Defo fire alarm #3!
So, let’s recap:
- unverifiable license number, meaning no apparent connection to the website.
- license dates don’t match.
- no verification badge, just that dodgy “curacao-certificate.org” link.
- license certification not hosted on cert.cga.cw like it should be.
- license certification only appears on some random, unofficial website.
- license certification is the only thing at said random, unofficial website.
So there it is, good job us because we’ve caught a rat. All this is what rogue casinos do, fake and lie to fool the unsuspecting player into handing over their cash. Player Beware!
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