An "EMTA licence" is the common name for an Estonian gambling authorisation. EMTA stands for Maksu- ja Tolliamet, the Estonian Tax and Customs Board, which supervises gambling operators in Estonia. Every licensed operator appears in a public register with licence numbers you can look up, and that register is the basis this directory is built on. This guide explains what the licence actually is, how it is issued, and how to read the numbers you see in a casino footer.
Two stages: activity licence and operating permit
Estonia does not issue a single gambling licence. Authorisation comes in two parts, and an operator needs both before it can legally offer games to players.
- HKT, the activity licence. This is the base authorisation to operate in a category of gambling (for example games of chance or betting/toto). It is open-ended in duration and confirms the company is permitted to be in the business at all. Think of it as the standing permission that a company must hold before anything else.
- HKL, the operating permit. This authorises a specific operation, such as a named online gambling operation, and it is time limited. A company holds its HKT activity licence and then one or more HKL operating permits on top of it. Each permit ties the general activity licence to an actual, running operation.
In practice you will often see both numbers printed together in a casino footer, for example HKT000060 and HKL000373. The HKT tells you the company is licensed for that category; the HKL tells you the specific operation is permitted. Some larger operators hold several HKL permits under one HKT, which is why a footer sometimes lists a long string of numbers.
How a licence is granted and kept
To reach the register, a company goes through a review before it is authorised, and it stays under ongoing supervision by the Tax and Customs Board afterwards. Because the operating permit is time limited, an operator has to remain in good standing to keep it, and the register reflects the current status. For a player this has a simple, useful consequence: a listing in the register is not a one-time badge, it is a live record. That is why checking the register beats trusting a logo, and it is the whole point of our step by step verification guide.
How to read the numbers
The format is fixed: three letters and six digits, either HKT###### or HKL######. If you see a number in that format on a casino site, you can check it against the Estonian register. If a site cannot show you an HKT/HKL number that matches its legal entity, it is not operating under an Estonian licence, whatever else it claims. The number alone is not enough, though: it has to be tied to the named company and to the exact domain you are on, which is the part we walk through in the verification guide.
What the register entry shows
Behind each licence sits a legal entity, and the register (and the MTR record for that entity) shows more than a number. You can typically see the company name, its Estonian registry code, its address, and the licence numbers with their type and status. This is what lets you confirm that the company in the footer is the company that actually holds the licence, and it is what we surface on every casino page in this directory so the check takes seconds.
Categories of gambling
The Estonian framework separates gambling into categories, and a licence is tied to a category. The two that matter for this directory are:
- Games of chance online. Online casino games (slots, table games and similar).
- Organisers of toto. Betting, including sports betting.
A single company can hold licences in more than one category. When it does, its casino domain may be listed under both, which is why some cards in this directory show both an Online Casino and a Betting tag while others show only one. The tag reflects which register tab the domain itself appears under, not a guess about the site.
Who holds the licence
The licence is held by a company, not by a brand. A brand you recognise may be operated by a company registered in Estonia, Cyprus or elsewhere, and in some cases the company that owns the domain is not the same as the company that holds the licence. Because of this, this directory treats one domain as one entry and shows you the exact legal entity behind it, rather than lumping every domain of a brand together.
Why the register matters
The value of an Estonian licence, for a player, is that it is verifiable. You do not have to trust a badge image. You take the HKT or HKL number, look it up in the Estonian register, and confirm that the licence exists, that it is active, and that it belongs to the company running the site. That verifiability is exactly what competitors who invent brands and top-lists cannot offer, and it is why the register, not a marketing claim, is the source of truth here. Next, learn how to verify a licence or see how it compares with other regulators in EMTA vs MGA vs Curacao.
Take the HKT/HKL number from a casino footer and look it up in the register. Our step-by-step guide shows how.
Casinos →