Stay Casino Licence & Regulation
Before you deposit a single dollar at any offshore pokies site, it’s worth knowing exactly who is behind it and what oversight, if any, applies. This page sets out precisely which licence Stay Casino operates under, who the licensed operator is, what that licence does and doesn’t guarantee, and — because plenty of comparison sites get this wrong — an honest answer to the question every Australian punter eventually asks: is Stay Casino actually licensed in Australia? We’ve pulled every detail below directly from the operator’s own published records, cross-checked against the site’s footer disclosures, so you’re not relying on second-hand claims.
Which Licence Does Stay Casino Operate Under?
Stay Casino is licensed and regulated by the Government of the Autonomous Island of Anjouan, Union of Comoros, and operates under Licence No. ALSI-202509073-FI2. This is the licence that governs the casino’s real-money pokies, live dealer tables and cashier operations for players worldwide, including Australian visitors. The brand has been trading under this licensing arrangement since 2021, which gives it a longer operating history than many newer offshore entrants that have popped up in the past couple of years.
Anjouan has become one of the more common licensing jurisdictions for internationally facing online casinos over the past few years, particularly after Curaçao’s old master-licence system (the one that previously governed a huge slice of the offshore casino market via Antillephone) stopped issuing new sub-licences from 1 November 2024 onwards. A number of established brands, Stay Casino among them, have since migrated their compliance paperwork to Anjouan’s regulator rather than sit in limbo. It’s a smaller, less internationally recognised authority than bodies like the Malta Gaming Authority, and it’s worth being upfront about that rather than dressing it up.
What Is an Anjouan Online Gaming Licence?
The Anjouan Licensing Services International (ALSI) framework is a Comoros-based licensing regime that authorises operators to offer real-money casino games — pokies, table games, live dealer products — to players outside the jurisdictions where the operator itself is barred from trading. It sits at the lighter-touch end of the international licensing spectrum. That doesn’t mean there’s no framework at all; it means the compliance bar is different from, say, a UK Gambling Commission licence, and punters should calibrate their expectations accordingly.
Fair Play & RNG Testing
Licensed operators under this regime are required to run games built on certified random number generator (RNG) technology, typically supplied and independently tested by the game studios themselves — the likes of Pragmatic Play, Evolution, Play’n GO, NetEnt, Nolimit City, Yggdrasil, Ezugi and Playson, all of which appear in Stay Casino’s live lobby. These studios hold their own testing certifications from labs such as GLI or iTech Labs for the individual game titles, which is a separate (and in practice more meaningful) layer of fair-play assurance than the casino’s own licence provides. In plain terms: the RTP and outcome fairness of a pokie like Gates of Olympus or Sweet Bonanza 1000 is largely a function of the game studio’s certification, not Stay Casino’s licence number. The licence covers the operator’s conduct — how it runs the site, handles funds and resolves disputes — rather than certifying the maths behind every reel spin itself.
Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Requirements
Anjouan-licensed operators are expected to maintain AML policies covering customer identification, source-of-funds checks on larger transactions and ongoing monitoring for suspicious activity. In practice, this is why Stay Casino runs KYC checks before a first withdrawal is released — proof of ID, date of birth and address verification — a process the operator’s own terms say can take up to 30 working days to clear. That’s slower than plenty of competitors, and we’re not going to pretend otherwise; it’s a genuine drawback of banking with this operator, even if the underlying reason (AML compliance) is a legitimate one. For the full breakdown of what documents are requested and why, see our KYC and AML verification breakdown.
The Operator: Metlait SRL
Stay Casino is owned and operated by Metlait SRL, a company registered in Costa Rica. This is the legal entity that holds the Anjouan licence and is contractually responsible for the casino’s operations, cashier and customer terms. The registration and licensing details, as published in the operator’s own site footer, are set out below.
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Operator | Metlait SRL |
| Registration No. | 3-102-911867 |
| Registered Address | El Guayaval, Residencial La Campina Casa Numero Q-11, Cartago, El Guarco, Tejar, 30801, Costa Rica |
| Licensor | Government of the Autonomous Island of Anjouan, Union of Comoros |
| Licence No. | ALSI-202509073-FI2 |
| Operating Since | 2021 |
A quick note on why a Costa Rica-registered company holds a Comoros licence to serve players in Australia: this layered structure — incorporation in one jurisdiction, licensing in another, players in a third — is standard practice across the offshore casino industry, not something unique or suspicious to Stay Casino specifically. It’s worth understanding, but it isn’t a red flag on its own.
What This Licence Covers — and What It Doesn’t
It’s tempting to treat “licensed” as a single tick-box, but it’s more useful to know what the Anjouan authorisation actually obliges Metlait SRL to do, and where the gaps sit.
- Covers: Authorisation to legally offer real-money pokies, live dealer games and related cashier services to players outside restricted territories; a baseline requirement to run AML/KYC checks; an obligation to hold player funds separately from operational funds (a standard licence condition across most offshore regimes, though not independently audited in the way segregated-account rules are enforced by tier-one regulators).
- Doesn’t cover: Independent, government-run dispute adjudication of the kind you’d get from a body like the UK Gambling Commission or the Malta Gaming Authority; a compensation or player-protection fund; mandatory participation in a recognised third-party alternative dispute resolution (ADR) scheme; or any guarantee around payout speed beyond what’s stated in Stay Casino’s own Terms & Conditions.
None of that makes the licence meaningless — it’s a genuine, checkable regulatory registration, not a fabricated claim — but it does sit lower on the enforcement ladder than the licences that apply to, say, a locally regulated Australian wagering operator. We think punters do better going in with that context than being told a vague “fully licensed and regulated” line with no detail behind it.
Is Stay Casino Licensed in Australia?
No — and claiming it holds an Australian licence would be inaccurate. Australia does not issue licences to online casino operators of any kind, offshore or domestic. Under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001, offering real-money online casino games (pokies, blackjack, roulette, baccarat) to Australian residents is prohibited for the operator, and the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) can issue blocking notices against unlicensed operators it identifies. Stay Casino’s Anjouan licence is not, and does not claim to be, an ACMA authorisation or an Australian government approval of any kind. Any site telling you otherwise is stretching the truth.
Here’s the part that trips a lot of players up, though: the law is written to target the operator, not the individual placing a bet. There is no provision under the IGA that makes it an offence for an Australian resident to open an account and play at an offshore casino, and there’s no reported precedent of a player being fined or prosecuted for doing so. So while Stay Casino is an international online casino accessible to Australian players rather than an Australia-licensed one, choosing to play there doesn’t put you on the wrong side of the law the way it does the operator. Australia simply doesn’t licence local online casino operators at all — real-money pokies for Aussie players are only available through international sites like this one, licensed elsewhere.
That said, “not illegal for the player” isn’t the same as “fully protected.” Because Stay Casino sits outside ACMA’s jurisdiction, you won’t have access to an Australian regulator if something goes wrong with your account, and BetStop — Australia’s self-exclusion register for licensed wagering providers — has no reach over offshore casinos like this one. We’d rather spell that out clearly than let you assume protections exist that don’t.
How to Verify Stay Casino’s Licence Yourself
We’d encourage you not to take our word — or any review site’s word — for licensing details. Here’s how to check it directly:
- Scroll to the footer of staycasino.com. The operator’s legal name (Metlait SRL), registration number, registered address and licence number are published there in full — the same details reproduced in the table above.
- Cross-reference the licence number format (ALSI-prefixed) against other operators publicly known to hold Anjouan authorisations; the ALSI prefix is specific to licences issued under this regime.
- Check the operator’s own Terms & Conditions and about page, which reference the same licensing entity and should stay consistent with the footer disclosure over time. If they ever stop matching, treat that as a warning sign.
- Read the site’s account and data security practices alongside the licence details — a legitimate operator’s security disclosures (encryption, account protection) should read as a coherent whole with its licensing claims, not contradict them.
If a licence number stops resolving anywhere, if the operator name in the footer changes without explanation, or if the registered address disappears from the site entirely, those are the practical signs something has shifted — far more useful than just trusting a padlock icon in your browser bar.
Complaints and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)
Unlike tier-one regulators, Anjouan’s framework doesn’t mandate that licensees join a specific, government-backed independent adjudication scheme the way, for example, licensees under the UK Gambling Commission are required to register with an approved ADR provider. In practice, that means your first — and most direct — port of call for any dispute is Stay Casino’s own support team via live chat or [email protected].
If a complaint genuinely can’t be resolved directly with the operator, the next practical step most players in this segment of the market take is escalating to independent, player-facing watchdog platforms such as AskGamblers or Casino.guru. These aren’t government bodies and can’t force a resolution, but both maintain public complaint records and voluntary mediation processes that a reasonable number of offshore operators — Stay Casino included, going by third-party complaint listings — do engage with to protect their standing. It’s not the same safety net as a regulator-backed ADR scheme, and we won’t pretend it is, but it’s a genuine and commonly used escalation path in this part of the industry.
Before lodging any external complaint, keep records: account emails, transaction IDs, screenshots of bonus terms at the time you opted in, and any support chat transcripts. Offshore dispute resolution, where it exists, moves faster and more fairly when there’s a clear paper trail behind the claim.
Responsible Gambling & Age Verification
A licence, wherever it’s issued from, is only one part of playing responsibly. Stay Casino requires players to be 18 years of age or older to register, in line with standard industry practice, and KYC checks during withdrawal verify date of birth alongside identity. For the full set of deposit, loss and wager limits, cooling-off periods and self-exclusion options Stay Casino itself offers, see our dedicated responsible gambling tools and self-exclusion options page.
Gambling Help Online is there on 1800 858 858, day or night, the moment pokies stop feeling like fun and start feeling like an obligation. Because BetStop’s coverage stops at licensed Australian wagering providers, it has no reach into an Anjouan-licensed brand like Stay Casino — the more useful move for blocking offshore sites specifically is a device-level tool, which is exactly what Gamban and BetBlocker are for. For anything beyond gambling, Lifeline answers on 13 11 14.
About Our Editorial Team
Licensing details on this page came from the operator’s own footer disclosures and published records, cross-checked by our team rather than lifted from a secondary directory site. Nobody on our side has a financial interest tied to how favourably we describe Stay Casino’s licensing status, and we revisit this page whenever the operator’s public filings change. For more on Metlait SRL, how we source facts and how the rest of the site gets reviewed, see our about page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Stay Casino a legitimate, licensed operator?
Yes, in the sense that matters: it holds an active, publicly verifiable licence (ALSI-202509073-FI2) issued by the Government of Anjouan to Metlait SRL, the registered operating company. It is not, and has never claimed to be, licensed by any Australian authority.
Can I get in trouble for playing at Stay Casino from Australia?
No. Australian gambling law targets operators offering unlicensed services to residents, not the residents themselves. There’s no penalty for Australian players choosing an offshore casino like this one, though it’s still sensible to play only with money you can comfortably afford to lose.
Does the licence guarantee my winnings will be paid out?
The licence obliges Metlait SRL to operate under AML and fund-handling rules, but it isn’t a payout insurance policy — nothing in any casino licence, anywhere, works that way. Withdrawals are still subject to Stay Casino’s own KYC checks (up to 30 working days) and the Terms & Conditions in force at the time you play, so read the bonus and cashier terms before you deposit rather than after.
What’s the difference between this licence and an ACMA approval?
ACMA doesn’t issue online casino licences at all — it enforces the Interactive Gambling Act against unlicensed operators targeting Australians. The Anjouan licence is a genuine international gaming authorisation, but it’s a separate regulatory track entirely, issued by a different government, with different enforcement powers and player protections.
Where can I check which countries Stay Casino doesn’t accept players from?
We’ve put together a full breakdown, including confirmed exclusions, on our countries where Stay Casino is unavailable page. It’s worth checking if you’re travelling or hold dual residency, since access can depend on where you’re physically located as well as your nationality.
For our complete assessment of the casino beyond licensing — bonuses, pokies library, payment speed and our overall verdict — head back to our Stay Casino Australia review summary. Full legal terms governing your account are set out in the operator’s Terms & Conditions, and our own site’s scope and limitations are covered in the full site disclaimer.
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