WILLEMSTAD – Although Curaçao has become one of the world’s most important jurisdictions for online gambling companies, the people who ultimately own many of those businesses are not from Curaçao. A major leak analyzed by investigative journalism platform Follow the Money shows that ownership stretches across the globe, with Europe accounting for the largest concentration.
The findings are part of the “Casino Secrets” investigation by Follow the Money journalists David Davidson, Sjors Hofstede and Lukas Kotkamp, with reporting in Curaçao by correspondent Dick Drayer. The investigation was conducted in cooperation with Berlin-based cybersecurity researcher Lilith Wittmann and media partners NRK in Norway, NDR in Germany, Jetzt in Austria and SVT in Sweden.
According to FTM, confidential documents obtained from the Curaçao Gaming Authority revealed the identities of about 800 owners connected to nearly 650 licensed gambling companies, which collectively operate thousands of gambling websites.
The owners identified in the documents come from countries across South America, Asia, North America and even the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu.
But most are European.
The largest concentrations identified by FTM were linked to Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Cyprus. The Netherlands was also represented, with 13 owners identified in the investigation.
Cyprus stands out because the country is home to numerous British and Ukrainian owners of Curaçao gambling businesses. FTM notes that Cyprus has long been associated with financial secrecy.
The findings illustrate an important characteristic of Curaçao’s online gambling industry: while the licenses and corporate entities are based on the island, the economic interests behind them are frequently international.
For decades, Curaçao attracted online gambling companies through a system in which the government issued master licenses to a small number of private companies. Those companies subsequently issued sublicenses to international gambling operators, with limited direct government supervision.
A Curaçao license allowed companies to establish themselves on the island and provided access to an ecosystem that included trust offices, payment providers and gambling software companies. It did not, however, automatically authorize those companies to accept bets in other countries.
That distinction has repeatedly caused problems abroad.
According to FTM, regulators in Australia, the United States and European countries have blacklisted Curaçao-linked gambling websites over allegations including operating without local licenses and violations of anti-money-laundering requirements.
The investigation also illustrates why foreign regulators have sometimes struggled to determine who should ultimately be held responsible.
International owners can operate through Curaçao letterbox companies administered by local trust offices. According to FTM, those corporate structures have made it difficult for regulators, tax authorities and journalists to establish who actually controls particular gambling businesses.
FTM says its journalists did not simply rely on a database contained in the leak to establish ownership.
Because database information did not always correspond with the underlying documents, the journalists manually examined corporate structures, personal disclosure forms and final assessments prepared by Curaçao regulators.
That process allowed FTM to verify 897 ultimate-beneficial-owner records involving 767 individuals. Sixty-five had transferred their interests before December 2025, while FTM could not establish whether another 30 people remained beneficial owners because supporting documents were missing.
The findings offer one of the clearest pictures yet of the international ownership structure behind an industry that has operated from Curaçao for decades.
They also underline the challenge facing the Curaçao Gaming Authority under the new regulatory system: Curaçao may issue the license, but determining who ultimately owns and controls the company behind that license can require investigations extending far beyond the island’s borders.
Source: Follow the Money, “Curaçao’s secretive gambling industry exposed in leak,” by David Davidson, Sjors Hofstede and Lukas Kotkamp, with reporting in Curaçao by Dick Drayer. Casino Secrets investigation in cooperation with Lilith Wittmann, NRK, NDR, Jetzt and SVT.