Legal online casinos on the authority’s register of authentic permits

The online casino tab, as read on 2 September 2026

Reread on 2 September 2026; the page timestamp was still 2026.09.01. 06:18 and the contents of the rows had not changed since the previous reading. The phrase „ajánlott felelős játékszervező" beside the organiser is an official rating meaning recommended responsible game organiser, and it is granted for one year at a time.

Who decides who gets on this list

The Szabályozott Tevékenységek Felügyeleti Hatósága, the Supervisory Authority for Regulated Activities. Its gambling arm runs under its own name, Szerencsejáték-felügyelet, but the legislation does not use that name: there it is „a szerencsejáték-felügyeleti hatóság" or simply „a Hatóság", the Authority. So anyone searching the text of the act for the initials SZTFH will not find them, even though the same body is meant.

The same authority keeps the registers of restrictions, which means authorisation and prohibition are decided at the same desk. They are still not one list, and the distinction is worth holding on to: one says who was granted a right, the other says whose address was cut off. What the second contains is set out on the page about the register of blocked websites.

We have not read Act XXXII of 2021 on the authority itself, so we make no claim here about how the body was created, its legal status or the boundaries of its powers. What we write comes from the szerencsejáték törvény and from the authority’s own pages.

Concession: the entry ticket is a casino in Hungary

The Hungarian rule narrows the organiser, not the player. Section 3 (1b) of the szerencsejáték törvény closes the question in a single sentence:

„Online kaszinójátékot kizárólag a Magyarország területén található játékkaszinó üzemeltetésére szóló koncesszió jogosultja által a kaszinójáték szervezésére létrehozott vagy működtetett koncessziós társaság szervezhet."

Only a concession company created or operated for the organisation of casino games by the holder of a concession to operate a casino located in the territory of Hungary may organise an online casino game.

Read the middle of that sentence again. Holding a concession is not enough: the concession has to be for a physical casino in Hungary, and the online activity may be run by that holder’s company.

Anyone who does not operate such a casino has no application they could even file. They are not refused: there is nowhere to apply.

The authority puts the same thing more briefly on its own site. From the Szerencsejáték-felügyelet information page on online casino games, as read on 1 September 2026:

„Online kaszinójáték szervezésére kizárólag Magyarország területén található játékkaszinó üzemeltetésére és kaszinójáték szervezésére létrehozott koncessziós társaság jogosult."

Two sources, the same condition. That is why the list stays short, and why it does not lengthen because a foreign site is of good quality or has been running for years.

Permit: betting operates under an entirely different rule

Remote gambling — távszerencsejáték, betting organised at a distance — is not tied to a concession. Section 29/D. § (1) puts it this way:

„A távszerencsejáték szervezését a Hatóság elnöke által kiadott rendeletben meghatározott feltételeknek megfelelő gazdasági társaság végezheti."

Remote gambling may be organised by a business company that meets the conditions laid down in a decree issued by the president of the Authority. There is no Hungarian casino here and no concession company. There is a set of conditions, filled in by a decree of the authority’s president, and any business company that meets them may apply.

The remote gambling tab of the same register lists two websites:

Same register, same reading of 2 September 2026. vegas.hu appears on both tabs, with two separate validity periods. That is not a mistake in the list but two different authorisations on the same domain.

Section 29/D. § (2) adds a financial condition: the fee must be paid in advance, in one sum, without instalments, for the whole period. That is no small matter, because depositing the entire fee for a multi-year period in advance filters out smaller companies on its own, whatever else they might qualify for.

Two tabs, two regimes of validity

It is worth putting the dates side by side, because the two tabs do not behave the same way.

On the casino tab all three rows show the same validity: 31 March 2056. One date for three websites, which fits the fact that all three are extensions of the same concession.

On the remote gambling tab, by contrast, there are two different dates, 23 October 2027 and 26 June 2030. Two permits, two expiries, two separate procedures.

The difference follows from what the two sections say. A concession is a long-term right attached to the operation of a domestic casino; a permit is compliance with a set of conditions filled in by a decree of the authority’s president, and it has to be renewed from time to time.

There is a practical consequence. The remote gambling tab moves on a shorter cycle, so the date of the reading matters more there than on the casino tab, where the next expiry is decades away.

Why half the summaries confuse the two

Because everyday Hungarian calls both "a licensed site", and because the news coverage of market opening used the umbrella term "online gambling".

Two different legal instruments fall under that umbrella. Betting was opened to a permit procedure. Casino play was not: there the concession stayed, and the concession is tied to the rights of domestic casino operators.

Exactly when, and under which piece of legislation, remote gambling was opened is not something we write here, because we have not read that legislation. So you will find no year for it from us. That is not modesty but the same rule set out on the page about reading the documents.

Szerencsejáték Zrt. and LVC Diamond: two different players

You will often read that online play in Hungary belongs to the state lottery company. The two tables give a more precise picture.

The permit holder of the three websites on the online casino tab is LVC Diamond, a casino operating company. Szerencsejáték Zrt. turns up on the other tab, at the remote gambling authorisation for tippmixpro.hu, with its seat at 1015 Budapest, Csalogány u. 30–32.

Two different companies, two different legal instruments, two different tabs.

This is not hair-splitting. Someone who reads "state monopoly" and therefore does not open the list is missing precisely the rows that answer their question. The name Szerencsejáték Zrt. returns in one more place on this site: at the Hungarian helplines it is the funder of the telephone advice service.

How to recognise the real list inside a Hungarian round-up

Most of the "legal online casinos" lists circulating online are not working from the register, and four signs give that away.

How many rows it has. The authority’s tab holds three websites. A Hungarian list of eight or twelve items is by definition not a copy of the permit list.

Whether the permit holder’s name and seat are there. The register publishes them in a column. A list that only gives brand names has dropped the very item that would let a row be traced back.

Whether the validity date is there. That is the third column of the register, and it is hard to leave out of a copy. Where it is missing, either the list is not from the register, or it was left out deliberately.

Whether it separates the two tabs. Anyone putting casino and betting authorisations into one list is mixing two legal instruments, and erasing exactly the distinction this page is about.

Any one of the four is enough to raise a doubt. Together they mean the list was not written from the register but from somewhere else.

What the word "legal" does not settle

The permit list is about whom the Hungarian state has granted a right. It is not about what happens to a player who plays somewhere else.

In the szerencsejáték törvény the penalties are addressed to the organiser, the intermediary and the advertiser. Section 2, for example, penalises the parties on the advertising side like this:

„a reklámozót, a reklámszolgáltatót, a reklám közzétevőjét és a reklámban szereplő személyt egyetemlegesen … legalább 10 millió forint összegű közigazgatási bírsággal sújthatja"

There is one prohibition on taking part in the act, in section 1 (6), and it applies to a person placed under guardianship fully restricting their capacity to act. Enforcing it is the organiser’s job too.

Section 191 of the petty offences act is the only place where the player appears, and it contains a limiting clause. We have laid out the rules that apply to the player in full text, because in Hungarian search results half of it is nearly always missing.

So what is a site without a Hungarian concession

An operator that does not appear in this register and typically works under the authorisation of another jurisdiction. What the word "foreign" covers and what can be traced back from the numbers is set out on its own page.

The authority may initiate the restriction of access to such websites. The address then goes into the other register, where it can be searched by domain.

The two lookups do not substitute for one another. A domain can be missing from both, and that is the more common case: no Hungarian authorisation, but no procedure carrying a public entry started against it either.

What the register does not say about the three websites

The list answers four questions: which address, who holds the permit, how long the authorisation runs, and whether it is suspended. That is all.

There is no bonus in it, no withdrawal deadline, and nothing about how many games run on the site. The authority does not publish those in this table, so anyone reading such data somewhere with a citation to "the official list" is working from another source.

Nor is there any quality assessment. A permit is a legal fact, not a recommendation: it says the organiser is authorised, not that it treats its customers well.

And there is no complaints route in it. What procedure is available in a dispute with a Hungarian permit holder is not described by this list, and the separate act on the authority stayed unread here, so we make no claim about that either.

This is worth saying out loud, because on comparison sites the word "legal" routinely promises a great deal more than the register actually contains.

How anyone can check it themselves

Open the permit list, switch to the online casino tab, and look for the domain.

If it is not there, check the register of restricted addresses too, because the two lists answer two different questions.

If you have read about a foreign authorisation on the site in question, look the number up in the issuer’s own register. Which number format can be looked up where is broken into six checks.

Anyone whose play is becoming a problem can call 80 980 025 free of charge on weekdays between 15:00 and 19:00.

Frequently asked questions