Blackjack Sites We Do Not Recommend, and the Record Behind Each Name
A business is named on this page only when a government body, a court or a licensing authority has put something on the public record about it, and the document is linked so you can read it yourself.
The short answer
- What gets a name onto this page: a published document from a government body, a court or a licensing authority, linked so you can check it.
- What a letter is: a cease-and-desist letter records a regulator’s allegation. It is not a court finding, and the operator may contest it.
- What stays deliberately unnamed: whole groups of recipients, including Michigan’s 45 offshore operators and the 60-plus Illinois casino and sweepstakes letters. Those names sit on the regulator’s own page, linked below.
- What we never claim: no regulator or court has found that any operator named here rigs its games, alters payouts or manipulates a shuffle, and we will not imply one from silence.
- Not operator blacklists: the New Jersey exclusion list and the Nevada Black Book name individuals barred from casino property, not websites.
Why this list is shorter than the others
Most gambling blacklists are worthless because nothing on them can be checked. This one is built the other way around.
A brand appears under a red heading, an anonymous paragraph calls it a scam, and no order, docket or regulator file sits behind the accusation. We take a narrower approach on this list of legal blackjack sites: a business gets named here only when a government body, a court or a licensing authority has put something on the public record about it, and the document is linked so you can read it yourself. That rule leaves out plenty of operators we privately distrust, but it means everything here survives a second look.
The result is less a list of villains than a map of where the evidence sits. American regulators publish more of it than most players realize, and once you know the addresses you can check any site yourself in a few minutes.
The rule this page runs on
We name a business only when a government agency, court or licensing authority has published a document about it, we link that document, and we describe what it says and nothing more. Where a regulator acted against a group of operators and we have not reproduced the names, the group stays unnamed here and the regulator’s own register is linked instead.
The Seven Criteria We Apply
Every exclusion traces back to one of seven failures, chosen because each has a direct, measurable cost to the person holding the account.
| Criterion | What the evidence looks like | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| Confirmed non-payment of verified winnings | A regulator finding, a court judgment or an arbitration award establishing that a withdrawal owed was not paid | The balance on screen is not money. It is an unsecured claim against a company you cannot sue cheaply. |
| Operating in a state after an order to stop | A cease-and-desist letter or order naming the operator, followed by continued availability in that state | An operator that ignores a state attorney general is not going to be moved by your support ticket. |
| Cloned or impersonating sites | A regulator warning that a site falsely claims a licence or affiliation it does not hold | Your deposit, your ID documents and your card details go to someone with no obligation to give any of it back. |
| Terms that permit voiding legitimate winnings | Published terms with open-ended forfeiture, irreversible bonus attachment or undefined “abuse” clauses | You can play a clean session, win, and have the win deleted under a rule written to be unfalsifiable. |
| Ignoring self-exclusion requests | Marketing or account reinstatement after a documented exclusion request, or no exclusion mechanism at all | The single protection that matters most to a player in trouble simply is not there. |
| No functioning complaint route | No named regulator, no dispute officer, no address, or a licensing body that disclaims player complaints | A dispute has nowhere to go. There is no second decision-maker above the operator. |
| Certifications the operator is not entitled to display | A licensing body or test lab publicly stating the seal, licence number or logo is not theirs | Every reassurance on the page is fabricated, which tells you what the games and the cashier are worth. |
Three of those deserve more than a table row.
Forfeiture terms are the quietest failure
A clause voiding winnings for “irregular play” without defining it, or one that permanently attaches a deposit to a bonus once a single hand is dealt, turns a blackjack session into a game where only one side can lose. Our walkthrough of how bonus terms are written and where they bite lists the clauses worth searching for first.
Self-exclusion is non-negotiable
In a regulated state, an exclusion request is enforced by the regulator across every licensee and the operator has no discretion. Offshore, it depends entirely on who wrote the software. The Kahnawake Gaming Commission is the rare offshore body that codifies it, offering a permanent and irrevocable exclusion with forfeiture of the remaining balance under sections 267 to 281 of its regulations. Most do not. Our guide to self-exclusion programs and how far each one reaches has the detail.
False certification is the easiest to check
Test-lab seals and licence badges are images, and anyone can paste one into a footer. The point of independent RNG certification is that a named lab tested a named game build for a named licensee, and that chain either exists in a regulator’s register or it does not.
Check the paperwork before you check the bonus
The four pages that turn each of the criteria above into something you can verify in a browser tab.
How to Read These Lists Without Misreading Them
A name on a regulator list is a specific factual claim, and it is almost never the claim readers assume. Three distinctions do most of the work.
“Not licensed here” is not “proven dishonest”
The Malta Gaming Authority’s unauthorised URLs list is exactly what it says: sites with no MGA authorization. Some are outright frauds. Others are ordinary businesses licensed elsewhere that never applied in Malta. Treating it as a fraud register misreads it, which is why we do not reproduce individual domains from it here.
A cease-and-desist letter is an allegation, not an adjudication
It records that a regulator believes an operator is breaking state law. It is not a court finding, the operator may contest it, and some of these disputes are genuinely unsettled. The Illinois sports wagering register makes that visible: alongside offshore books it lists prediction market platforms whose status under state gambling law is being litigated in federal court. Those letters mean something quite different from a letter to an unlicensed offshore casino, and the register does not sort them for you.
A licence ending is not automatically a scandal
The Kahnawake feed logs voluntary terminations, such as Cartwheel B.V. giving up its client provider authorization effective July 1, 2026. Companies close and restructure routinely, so read the stated reason before reading anything into it.
Two registers that are not operator blacklists
The New Jersey exclusion list and the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s excluded persons list, the latter still called the Black Book, name individuals barred from casino property. Neither is an operator blacklist, and neither says anything about whether a website pays its players. For the wider picture, see our page on gambling enforcement actions and what they achieve.
Ordered Out of a US State: The Documented Entries
Every row below traces to a cease-and-desist letter or order published by a named US regulator. Where the order covered a group whose members we have not reproduced, the group is listed unnamed and the register is linked instead.
| Operator or group | Regulator | Action on the record | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harp Media B.V., doing business as Bovada.lv and Bovada.com | Illinois Gaming Board | Cease-and-desist letter, opening the sports wagering register | Feb. 3, 2025 |
| BetOnline.ag | Illinois Gaming Board | Cease-and-desist letter, second wave | Feb. 11, 2025 |
| betus.com.pa | Illinois Gaming Board | Cease-and-desist letter, second wave | Feb. 11, 2025 |
| Bookmaker.eu | Illinois Gaming Board | Cease-and-desist letter, second wave | Feb. 11, 2025 |
| betanysports.eu | Illinois Gaming Board | Cease-and-desist letter, second wave | Feb. 11, 2025 |
| heritagesports.eu | Illinois Gaming Board | Cease-and-desist letter, second wave | Feb. 11, 2025 |
| parlayplay.io | Illinois Gaming Board | Cease-and-desist letter, second wave. See the litigation caveat above on prediction market platforms. | Feb. 11, 2025 |
| Drafters, Inc. | Illinois Gaming Board | Cease-and-desist letter, second wave. See the litigation caveat above on prediction market platforms. | Feb. 11, 2025 |
| The remaining entities on the same register, not reproduced here | Illinois Gaming Board | The register lists 13 entities in all, each with the exact date its letter issued. Read the names on the Board’s own page. | Dates on the register |
| More than 60 recipients believed to be running illegal online casino or online sweepstakes platforms, not named here | Illinois Gaming Board, in coordination with the Illinois attorney general | Cease-and-desist letters. The Board names the recipients on its casino and sweepstakes register. | Standing register, updated as orders issue |
| 45 illegal offshore gambling operators, not named here | Michigan Gaming Control Board | Cease-and-desist orders, each with a 14-day deadline to leave the state | April 7, 2026 |
| An earlier wave of recipients, not named here | Michigan Gaming Control Board | Cease-and-desist orders announced in a board news release | Dec. 3, 2025 |
| Harp Media B.V. of Willemstad, Curacao, the operator behind Bovada | Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection, gaming division director Kristofer Gilman | Cease-and-desist letter citing Connecticut General Statutes sections 53-278b and 53-278d and the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act, requiring the operator to stop serving Connecticut and to let Connecticut customers withdraw their funds | June 14, 2024 |
Where those documents live
Illinois Gaming Board. The IGB maintains two standing public pages of cease-and-desist recipients, which makes it the most transparent state in the country on this question. Its sports wagering cease-and-desist register lists 13 entities with the exact date each letter issued. The Board states it “has reason to believe the online gaming operators identified below are engaging in unlicensed sports wagering activity in violation of the Illinois Sports Wagering Act.” Its separate casino and sweepstakes cease-and-desist register reports more than 60 letters issued in coordination with the Illinois attorney general to entities the Board believes are running illegal online casino or online sweepstakes platforms, and names the recipients there.
Michigan Gaming Control Board. Michigan runs the most sustained campaign of any state, issuing orders in waves rather than one-offs. Releases dated Dec. 3, 2025 and April 7, 2026 are the ones to read; the April release covered 45 offshore operators and gave each a 14-day deadline to leave the state. Which recipients actually complied is more informative than any single letter. Our Michigan page tracks the licensed side of that market.
Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection. The June 14, 2024 letter required the operator not only to stop serving Connecticut but to let Connecticut customers withdraw their funds, and Bovada switched the state off the following month. That sequence, an order followed by an actual exit, is the outcome these letters are supposed to produce and frequently do not. Background on the regulator is on our Connecticut DCP page.
New York State Gaming Commission. New York takes the consumer-warning approach rather than the naming approach, which is why no New York row appears in the table above. Its unlawful online gambling advisory sets out which categories are illegal in the state, including online casinos, sites claiming sweepstakes status, prediction markets and offshore books, and lists the red flags it wants players to notice: no state licence, missing contact details, no age verification, absent responsible gambling tools. It is blunt about disputes at an unlicensed site, warning that patrons have no “recourse or customer service to resolve disputes.”
What the pattern in that table actually shows
Unlicensed operators ordered out of a state are the largest group and the one American players actually encounter. The pattern is consistent: an offshore site accepts customers in a state that never licensed it, the regulator sends a letter, and nothing visible happens for months. What moves these operators is accumulation, not any single letter. Bovada’s operator has now been ordered out by multiple states, and its restricted list has grown to 19 states plus the District of Columbia, with Connecticut and the District switched off in July 2024. Sister brands under the same corporate umbrella block far fewer states, which tells you these are commercial risk calculations rather than compliance ones. Our comparison of offshore sites against state-licensed operators covers what that difference means when something goes wrong.
Sweepstakes operators are the second pattern, and the fastest moving. The model, in which the site sells one currency and gives away a second that is redeemable for cash, has drawn state action faster than any other category in the past two years. Montana was first to ban it by statute outright, with SB 555 taking effect Oct. 1, 2025, and Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Nevada have moved by statute, regulator opinion or cease-and-desist. Illinois issued more than 60 letters through its gaming board in coordination with the attorney general, and compliance has been poor: most recipients remained available to Illinois players months afterward. That gap between order and compliance is itself the disqualifying fact for us. An operator that keeps taking wagers from a state whose regulator has told it to stop has already answered the question of how it will treat a disputed withdrawal. Our page on sweepstakes blackjack and its legal status covers the model in detail.
Follow the paper trail further
Where the orders in that table come from, what regulators do with them, and how to check a licence claim yourself.
Named in a Tribal or Foreign Regulator Notice
These entries come from bodies outside the United States that publish individual warnings and cancellations. The same rule applies: a document, linked, described and nothing more.
| Operator, site or group | Regulator | Action on the record | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| A site operating as Stardust Casino at stardust-casino.ca | Kahnawake Gaming Commission | Warning that the site is not licensed by the commission | April 20, 2026 |
| jetsetspins89.com | Kahnawake Gaming Commission | Warning about an unlicensed interactive gaming website | June 19, 2026 |
| kahnawake-gaming-license.com | Kahnawake Gaming Commission | Notice that the site was falsely representing an affiliation with the commission | June 9, 2026 |
| Oddsfly Limited | Malta Gaming Authority | Licence cancelled with more than 104,000 euros outstanding | July 14, 2025 |
| Goldwin Ltd | Malta Gaming Authority | Licence cancelled with unmet player fund obligations | March 13, 2025 |
| Several hundred domains on the unauthorised URLs list, not reproduced here | Malta Gaming Authority | Listed because the authority “has no connection with the below listed URLs” and any reference to an MGA licence on them “is false and misleading.” Being on it does not by itself establish fraud. | Entries from 2006, with additions through August 2026 |
Kahnawake Gaming Commission. The KGC publishes individual warnings when a site claims its authorization without holding it, which makes its news feed the best documented source anywhere on clone and impersonation sites. In each case the claim is narrow and checkable: this site is not licensed by us. Cross-check any KGC claim against the commission’s own permit holder register.
Malta Gaming Authority. The MGA runs two separate registers that do different jobs. Its unauthorised URLs list holds several hundred domains going back to 2006, with additions through August 2026. Its enforcement register is the harder document: roughly 80 cancellations, suspensions and notices of cancellation against former licensees. Verify any live claim against the MGA licensee register.
The cheapest attack in this industry is to copy a real casino’s front end, buy a similar domain and paste a licence number belonging to someone else. Reused casino names from the land-based era are a favorite, because a familiar name lowers a player’s guard before the licence claim is ever examined. The defense is mechanical: take the number off the site, open the licensing body’s own register, and confirm the number, the corporate name and the domain all match. Fake mobile apps work the same way, covered on our page about counterfeit casino apps and impersonation scams.
Licensed Operators With Published Findings Against Them
This category is the one blacklists usually get wrong, so we handle it separately and we do not exclude an operator merely for appearing in it.
Several very large, fully licensed companies carry published findings and substantial penalties. We look at what the finding was for, whether remediation was required, and whether anything similar recurred. A licensee fined for anti-money-laundering process gaps and then supervised through a fix sits in a different position from an operator no regulator can reach at all. The finding is, perversely, evidence the system worked: someone with subpoena power looked, published what they found and imposed a consequence.
| Operator | Regulator | Action on the record | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Evolution Malta Holding Limited | UK Gambling Commission | Penalty of 4.75 million pounds | July 23, 2026 |
| Petfre (Gibraltar) Limited | UK Gambling Commission | Penalty of 900,000 pounds | June 30, 2026 |
| QuinnBet (Gibraltar) Limited | UK Gambling Commission | Penalty of 609,104 pounds | Aug. 20, 2026 |
Why these three are not an exclusion
None of these companies serves American players. The commission’s public register is the deepest archive of published findings against gambling operators in the English-speaking world, and its regulatory actions section alone holds 133 records searchable by operator name. The separate enforcement action feed carries the detail. A published finding against a supervised licensee is not the same fact as an order against an operator no regulator can reach. Our overview of how online blackjack sites get licensed explains why that supervisory relationship is the thing you are actually buying in a regulated state.
Entries Sourced From Player Complaints
There are none on this page, and this section exists to make that absence visible rather than let it pass unnoticed.
We decline to name several operators we would personally avoid, because the material against them is player forum accounts and unsourced blog posts. Unverified complaints are not evidence, and publishing them would make this page the kind of document we wrote it to replace.
If complaint-sourced entries are ever added, they will appear here, under this heading, and nowhere near the tables above. That separation is the point. Everything in the earlier sections has a government or licensing-authority document behind it that you can open in a new tab. Anything that lands in this section would not, and you are entitled to weigh the two differently without having to work out which is which.
What is deliberately unnamed, and why
Michigan’s 45 offshore recipients, the 60-plus Illinois casino and sweepstakes recipients, and the several hundred domains on the MGA unauthorised URLs list are all real groups with real documents behind them, and none of them is named on this page. We list the group, describe the order and link the register so you can read the names at the source. That is a deliberate limit on what we republish, not a gap in the record.
How a Site Gets Off a List
Removal is neither a favor nor automatic, and the mechanics differ depending on which kind of body issued the document.
Cease-and-desist orders are typically resolved by geoblocking the state and, where the order demands it, processing withdrawals for the customers being cut off, which is exactly what the Connecticut order against Harp Media required. Once an operator complies, the regulator generally has no further action to take, though the letter itself remains published. Licensing bodies work differently: a suspended licence can be restored when the conditions in the notice are met, while a cancellation ends the relationship and the entry stays in the register permanently.
An order in one state is not a verdict everywhere
An operator ordered out of Michigan is not thereby a bad operator everywhere. Gambling authorization in the United States is granted state by state, so a company can be lawfully licensed in one jurisdiction, unlicensed in a second and expressly prohibited in a third, all at the same moment, without any of its conduct changing. An Illinois or Michigan letter says the operator was not licensed there. It does not say the games are rigged, and we will not write that it does. Equally, a valid licence abroad authorizes nothing in a state that has not issued its own. Check our breakdown of what offshore licences actually cover and our state-by-state legal status index before assuming either direction.
Check a Site Yourself Before You Deposit
You do not need to trust anyone’s list, including ours. The whole check takes about 10 minutes.
Find the licence number and the exact corporate name
Both are in the site footer. If either is missing, stop there.
Open the register by typing its address
Go to the licensing body’s register directly, not by following a link from the casino, and search the corporate name. Our walkthrough on verifying a gambling licence lists the register addresses.
Confirm the entry covers the domain you are on
Not just a parent company. Clone operations reuse real licence numbers.
Search the regulator pages above for the corporate name
The Illinois registers and the Michigan news archive are the fastest two.
Read the withdrawal and bonus terms for forfeiture language
Before depositing, not after winning.
Run the site against a red flags checklist
Use our online casino red flags checklist and the broader guidance on staying safe at online blackjack sites.
The ten-minute check, in four pages
Everything the six steps above depend on, with the register addresses and the warning signs written out.
If Your Money Is Already Stuck
Document as you go. Screenshot the balance, the game history and every support exchange before you file anything, because access can disappear once a dispute opens.
If the operator is licensed in your state
- You have a real regulator behind you, with the power to order a remedy.
- Complain to the operator first, then escalate to the state agency.
- In New Jersey the escalation route is the Division of Gaming Enforcement internet gaming dispute form, at igaming@njdge.gov or 609-984-0909.
- The mechanics for each state are on our page about filing a complaint against an online casino.
If the operator is offshore
- Your options narrow sharply. Some licensing bodies will hear a complaint and some will not.
- Kahnawake provides a dispute resolution officer and publishes an annual complaint summary, and its complaints procedure is a genuine route.
- The Curacao Gaming Authority disclaims handling individual player disputes, which leaves a Curacao-licensed operator unsupervised at the level that matters to you.
- Where no licensing body will intervene, a chargeback through your payment provider and a complaint to your own state attorney general are what is left, and neither is quick.
Where a stuck balance goes next
The three routes that exist once support has stopped answering, and what each one can actually order.
Methodology and Review
Here is precisely what this page rests on, and what it deliberately refuses to say.
We name a business only when a government agency, court or licensing authority has published a document about it, we link that document, and we describe what it says and nothing more. A cease-and-desist letter is reported as a regulator’s allegation, because that is what it is. We do not assert that any named operator cheats its games, alters payouts or manipulates a shuffle: no regulator or court has made such a finding against any operator named here, and we will not imply one from silence.
We also decline to name several operators we would personally avoid, because the material against them is player forum accounts and unsourced blog posts. Unverified complaints are not evidence, and publishing them would make this page the kind of document we wrote it to replace.
If you are an operator named here and a document has been superseded, an order lifted or a licence restored, send the record and we will correct the page and note the change. If you are a player who believes a documented case is missing, send the order, judgment or regulator publication rather than the story, and we will look at it.
Nothing here is legal advice, and gambling law differs in every state, so confirm your own state’s position before playing anywhere. Anyone whose play has stopped feeling like a choice can reach a free, confidential counselor on 1-800-697-3738.
Read the rest of the record
The pages that put the orders above in context, from the law behind them to the states where the same operators are licensed.
Sources checked and this page reviewed on Aug. 25, 2026. Regulator registers change without notice, so open the linked source before relying on any entry.
