What "remote betting" means
The licences GRAI began issuing on 1 July 2026 are remote betting and betting intermediary licences. That category covers wagering on an outcome — sports betting, odds-based betting, and phone betting — placed online or by other remote means.
What "remote gaming" means
Online casino falls under a separate category GRAI calls remote gaming — slots, table games, live dealer, and similar. This is explicitly on a later timeline. Some sources describe it as commencing "during 2026–2027" without a fixed date; others conflate it with the July betting date entirely, which is the source of most of the confusion online.
Why the two are regulated separately at all
Betting and gaming carry different risk profiles under the Gambling Regulation Act 2024 — different stake structures, different addiction-risk research findings, and different existing international precedent (the UKGC, for comparison, also separates these categories in its own licensing). Rolling betting out first reflects betting's larger existing share of the regulated Irish market under the old Revenue-run system.
What to watch for next
We'll update the registry and this page the moment GRAI opens applications for remote gaming licences specifically. Until then, an online casino operating under an MGA, Curaçao, or Anjouan licence is not doing anything irregular by Irish standards — it simply hasn't had a domestic licensing category to move into yet.