Why Licensed Casinos in Europe Still Won’t Take Your Crypto

A study of 2,554 online casinos shows that crypto payments are now common, but almost only at casinos without a licence in the player’s country.

If you browse Cryptwerk’scasino category, you’ll find 323 casinos that accept crypto at the time of writing. What a listing can’t tell you is who runs each casino, or whether any regulator oversees the casino.

Kasinohai published a study on 30 July 2026 that helps answer part of that question. The research team behind the study recorded the payment methods listed by every casino the site tracks, country by country, and published the results asan analysis of 2,554 casino brands across 24 markets. Of those, 1,283 casinos (50.2%) accept at least one cryptocurrency, and 98.2% of them accept Bitcoin. But the picture looks very different depending on whether a casino holds a national licence.

Licensed casinos almost never accept crypto

Sweden, Romania, Italy and the Netherlands have 319 casinos with a national licence between them. Not one of them accepts crypto. Casinos that take players from those countries without a licence behave very differently: in Sweden, 19.4% of them accept crypto, and in Romania, 91.7% do.

Germany is similar. Only 4.9% of its 41 licensed casinos accept crypto, compared with 70.6% of the 1,195 unlicensed casinos that take German players.

So why do licensed casinos avoid crypto? In most of these countries, the law does not ban crypto outright. The Kasinohai Research team’s explanation is that licensed casinos have each concluded, on their own, that their regulator would not accept crypto payments.

New casinos are driving the growth

Newer casinos are much more likely to accept crypto. Of the casinos launched between 2014 and 2016, 30.6% accept crypto. Of those launched between 2023 and 2026, 70.9% do.

That is a rise of 40.3 percentage points, and the study breaks the rise into three parts. First, newer offshore casinos (those without a European licence) are more likely to accept crypto than older offshore casinos, which accounts for 20.4 points (51%). Second, a much larger share of new casinos now launch offshore, which accounts for 18.9 points (47%). Casinos licensed in the European Economic Area, such as those holding a licence from Malta or Estonia, account for only 1 point (2%).

Crypto casinos also tend to be young and run by small companies. Half of the casinos that accept crypto launched in 2022 or later. For casinos that don’t accept crypto, the halfway point is 2018. Among casinos launched from 2023 onward, 91.9% of those run by a company with just one casino accept crypto, compared with 48.6% of those run by groups with ten or more casinos.

Anyone who counts crypto merchants should keep this in mind. A rising count can come mostly from new businesses that accept crypto from day one, even when few existing businesses add crypto.

Tether took over, and USDC never showed up

Tether (USDT) has become the standard coin at newer offshore casinos. Tether is accepted by 82.8% of offshore casinos launched between 2023 and 2026, up from 21.8% of those launched between 2014 and 2016.

USDC, the other major dollar stablecoin, does not appear in the data at all. The study only records the payment methods casinos list on their sites, so a casino could accept USDC without listing the coin.

The missing USDC is surprising, because the coin is widely accepted outside gambling. On Cryptwerk, 2,357 companies arelisted as accepting Tether and 1,565 as accepting USDC.

EU regulation may be one reason, although the study does not examine this. In astatement of 17 January 2025, the EU’s securities regulator, ESMA, told crypto exchanges and other crypto service providers in the EU to stop offering trading in stablecoins that do not meet MiCA, the EU’s crypto rules. Holding and sending those coins remained allowed. Tether has not applied for approval under MiCA, and major exchanges have stopped selling USDT to retail customers in the EU. USDC is approved. These rules apply to crypto service providers, not to casinos.

What this means if you play in Europe

In the European markets the study covers, an online casino that lets you pay with crypto most likely does not hold a licence in the country where you live. In Sweden, Romania, Italy and the Netherlands, every casino the study found accepting crypto was unlicensed.

Regulators are also acting against unlicensed casinos. In adecision published in March 2026, the Dutch gambling regulator, the Kansspelautoriteit, fined the company Novatech €24,846,000 for offering its casinos Qbet.com and 55Bet.com to Dutch players without a licence. One of the reasons the regulator gave for raising the fine was that the casinos let players pay with cryptocurrency, including Bitcoin. Novatech has lodged an objection.

Before you deposit at any casino, look the casino up in your national regulator’s licence register. For a casino licensed in Malta, Kasinohai’s Finnish guide to casinos licensed by the Malta Gaming Authority explains step by step how to check that the Maltese licence is real. Crypto payments generally can’t be reversed. A casino without a licence in your country also leaves you without the complaint routes and player protections that a licence gives.

The study records which payment methods casinos list, not how much money is actually paid with them. The study also probably misses some offshore casinos, so the true share of casinos accepting crypto is likely higher than 50.2%. The situation may also change: according to the study, the UK Gambling Commission began looking in February 2026 at whether licensed casinos could accept crypto.

Gambling should be entertainment, never a way to make money. Check the legal gambling age where you live, and if gambling stops being fun, contact your national support service.