Anjouan Casino Licences: Who Regulates the Regulator?

But several separate questions sit behind that apparently simple credential. Who authorised the issuer? What does it supervise? Where can a player take a dispute? And what happens if an operator refuses to cooperate?

Anjouan brings those questions into sharp focus.

The Guardian’s October investigation renewed scrutiny of Anjouan’s gambling licensing arrangements and their claimed regulatory authority.

For Fabulous Research, the useful next step is to examine the documents players and publishers are being asked to trust.

Two conflicting accounts of authority

Anjouan Gaming describes a regulatory structure founded on island legislation adopted in 2005. Its website identifies the Anjouan Offshore Financial Authority, or AOFA, within that structure and names Anjouan Licensing Services Inc. as the licence administrator. These are the licensing organisation’s own statements about its mandate.

The Comorian central bank has published a sharply different account concerning offshore financial licensing.

A central bank warning published by the Ministry of Finance names the Anjouan Offshore Finance Authority and Anjouan Corporate Services among structures it describes as fictitious. It asserts the central bank’s exclusive authority to license banks and financial institutions and reports referrals to prosecutors.

The scope of that document matters. It addresses banking and financial activities. Treating it as a court judgment invalidating every individual gaming certificate would go beyond what the document establishes.

Nevertheless, the institutional connection deserves scrutiny: the gaming framework identifies an offshore authority as part of its foundation, while the central bank challenges the authority bearing that name in the financial sector.

Anjouan Gaming maintains that its framework is legally valid. Its legal-context page cites island legislation and says an independent legal opinion supports the authority’s position. That is evidence of its stated legal argument; it does not independently resolve the competing positions.

Our assessment: the authority behind an Anjouan licence should be treated as disputed, with that dispute explained wherever the licence is presented as a trust credential.

This scrutiny predates the latest headlines

An ABC News investigation published in December 2025 had already examined the relationships between offshore licensing businesses and the bodies claiming regulatory authority.

ABC reported objections from Comorian officials, including a former attorney-general’s criticism of Anjouan Licensing Services. It also investigated an Anjouan-licensed casino’s access to Australian customers and payment methods. Those findings remain ABC’s reporting, rather than independent findings by Fabulous.

For anyone assessing a casino today, the relevant issue is therefore broader than one recent news cycle. There is a documented history of challenges to the licensing structure.

A credible assessment needs to acknowledge that history alongside the licensing organisation’s response.

What a register entry actually establishes

Anjouan Gaming provides a public verification tool that accepts a licence number, company name or operational domain. Its registry disclaimer also cautions that updates are periodic and may not immediately reflect changes.

Checking that record is useful. A casino displaying somebody else’s licence, an unrelated company name or an unlisted domain presents an immediate verification problem.

However, matching a casino to the issuer’s database answers a limited question: does the issuer record this business within its system?

It does not independently establish the issuer’s legal standing, the operator’s financial health or its treatment of withdrawals.

This distinction should shape how casino publishers describe their findings.

“Licence record matched to the operating company” is a specific, supportable observation. “Fully trusted because it is licensed” makes a much larger promise.

The complaint process deserves as much attention as the seal

The most practical document for a player may be the published complaints policy.

Anjouan Gaming explicitly says it does not adjudicate individual player disputes. Its stated process starts with the operator, which has 30 calendar days to respond, followed by escalation to an approved alternative dispute resolution provider where the matter remains unresolved.

The policy specifies submission deadlines and excludes complaints from players in excluded territories. It says operators must participate in ADR and bear the proceedings’ cost.

Anjouan Gaming also publishes an approved ADR provider directory, with provider descriptions and procedures. This gives players an identifiable route to investigate. The directory alone does not demonstrate how effectively that route operates across individual casinos.

Our assessment would therefore ask:

• Which ADR provider covers this particular operator?
• Can the player find its submission process before depositing?
• What rules determine whether the complaint is accepted?
• What makes a decision binding?
• What happens if the operator does not comply?

These questions test the practical value of a complaints framework. Having a procedure is the starting point; evidence of completed remedies makes it more persuasive.

Published supervision needs published results

During our source review, Anjouan Gaming’s annual regulatory report page stated that its first report was still in preparation.

The page describes intended coverage including licensing activity, supervision, enforcement and outcomes.

That is a useful publication commitment. Until the report appears, readers cannot assess those results through that document.

The absence of a completed report does not establish that supervision never occurs. It limits what an outside observer can verify.

For Fabulous, useful evidence would include complaint volumes, resolution times, compliance with ADR decisions and enforcement outcomes. Those measures would help readers evaluate how the framework performs when commercial interests and player interests conflict.

A licence is also separate from permission to serve a market

Even Anjouan Gaming’s own legal-context page says its licences do not override local prohibitions or regulatory requirements. It assigns responsibility for market access and local compliance to operators.

Great Britain offers a clear example. The Gambling Commission states that businesses providing remote gambling to consumers in Great Britain require its licence, including businesses based abroad.

A casino’s licence jurisdiction and its permission to serve a particular customer are therefore separate checks.

For readers elsewhere, including Asia, the same assessment discipline is useful: establish the operator, examine its claimed licence and investigate the rules applicable to the market being served.

A working registration form cannot answer all three questions.

Fabulous Research assessment

Anjouan exposes a weakness in the way casino trust is often presented: a complicated regulatory claim becomes a small badge, and the badge becomes a recommendation.

Our position is that an Anjouan licence requires qualified treatment.

A verifiable record can help identify an operator. Published policies can explain the promised oversight. Neither removes the need to examine disputed authority, complaint remedies and evidence of enforcement.

That also leaves room for careful distinctions between individual businesses. A jurisdiction-level controversy does not establish that every operator has withheld winnings or mistreated customers. Those allegations require operator-specific evidence.

For players, the decisive question is practical: if something goes wrong, which identifiable organisation can secure a remedy—and what evidence shows that it can?

For publishers, the obligation is equally concrete: describe what has been verified, explain the limits and avoid turning an unresolved institutional claim into an assurance of safety.

Research note: This article reviews publicly available documents accessed on 22 October 2026. It distinguishes the licensing organisation’s claims, Comorian official warnings, attributed reporting and Fabulous editorial assessment. Fabulous has not independently tested the complaints system or obtained a judicial determination of the competing legal positions.