About Casino Dubai: Who We Are and How We Work
Casino Dubai is an independent guide, in English and Arabic, to gambling in the UAE: what is legal, who is licensed, and what offshore casinos really offer UAE visitors. We test casinos from the UAE, date every figure, and state plainly that only Play971 is licensed for online gambling.
We started as a site about casinos for players in Dubai and rebuilt it in 2026, after the UAE created a federal gambling regulator and the first licences were issued. This page explains what we cover, how we work, and how the site is paid for.
What We Cover
The site follows the four areas UAE readers ask about most. Each one has its own guides, written for people who live in or visit the Emirates:
- The law — what the Crimes and Penalties Law says about gambling, what the GCGRA regulates, and which operators it has licensed. Start with our guide to whether gambling is legal in the UAE.
- Licensed products — Play971, the only licensed online casino and sportsbook; The UAE Lottery and its results; the long-running airport draws, Big Ticket and Dubai Duty Free; and the casino resort being built at Wynn Al Marjan Island.
- Casino games — guides to casino games such as roulette, blackjack, baccarat and slots, with house edges we calculate ourselves rather than copy.
- Offshore casinos — reviews of international casinos that UAE residents find through search, tested from a UAE connection, with their licence, terms, payments and odds checked.
Every guide and review answers the legal question first, because for a reader in the UAE it is the one that matters most.
Where We Stand on UAE Law
Gambling in the UAE is lawful only through an operator licensed by the federal General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority. Article 461 of the Crimes and Penalties Law (Federal Decree-Law No. 31 of 2021) punishes whoever gambles with an unlicensed operator with up to two years in prison or a fine of up to AED 50,000. That is why we review offshore casinos without ever describing them as legal, safe or authorised in the UAE, whatever licence they hold abroad.
We review them because UAE residents search for them, see their advertising and ask whether they can be trusted. A clear account of who runs a casino, what its terms say and what it does with players’ money is more useful than silence. We do not explain how to get around blocked websites, bank restrictions or location checks, and we do not publish ways to hide gambling from banks or authorities.
How We Test and Rate
Our reviews are built on what a casino shows a visitor in the UAE and what its own terms say. We open each casino from a UAE connection, read its terms in full, record its payment methods with the UAE selected, count its games through the site’s own lists, measure the margins on its football odds and look up its licence on the regulator’s register. We do not open real-money accounts, and our reviews say so.
Each casino is scored in eight categories, and the overall rating is their average. The full method — what each category covers, how we measure odds and how we check licences — is on our How We Rate Online Casinos page.
How the Site Is Paid For
Casino Dubai is free to read. We earn a commission when a reader signs up at some of the casinos we review through a link on this site. Those links are marked as sponsored, and they appear in the casino table and in the boxes at the top of reviews.
| Question | Our answer |
|---|---|
| Does a commission change a rating? | No. Ratings come only from the review’s eight category scores. |
| Does a commission change the order of the table? | No. The table is ordered by rating, with Play971 first as the only licensed operator. |
| Is the Play971 link an affiliate link? | No. It goes to Play971’s official website. |
If a commercial relationship ever affected what we publish, the review would no longer be worth reading — so we keep the two apart.
Who Writes Casino Dubai
Our guides and reviews are written and checked by our editorial team, and each article shows its author and the date it was last updated. Reviews are published only after the licence, the bonus terms and the payment rules have been read line by line, and every measurement in them — game counts, odds margins, register entries — is dated.
Facts about the law and the licensed operators come from primary sources wherever we can reach them: the GCGRA’s published licensee list, UAE federal legislation, operators’ own terms and help centres, and regulators’ registers abroad. Where we rely on reporting by the UAE press, we say so.
Corrections
We get things wrong sometimes. When a reader, an operator or our own checks show a mistake, we correct it on every page where the figure appears and update the page’s date. You can report one to info@casinodubai.bet; our Contact page explains what to include. When a casino changes its name, its offer or its terms, we update the review and the pages that compare it. Offers and terms change often, so always confirm the current terms on the operator’s own website before depositing.
Play Responsibly
Gambling should be a paid-for entertainment, never a way to make money or to recover losses. Set a budget before you play and stop when it is spent. If gambling is causing you or someone close to you difficulty, our responsible gambling guide lists free, confidential support. In the UAE, the only licensed online casino is Play971, for players aged 21 or over who are physically in the country, outside Dubai.