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What the BC.Game bankruptcy ruling taught players about "licensed" casinos

A Curaçao court declared BC.Game's operators bankrupt over unpaid player claims. The licence went first, and no public record shows the players were paid.

Dave WaskyAUG 18, 2026 · 6 MIN READwatchlistbc-gamelicensing

A licence badge in a casino footer is a marketing asset. It is not a payment guarantee, and it is not a bond.

The clearest proof of that in crypto gambling is BC.Game. In November 2024, courts in Curaçao declared the companies behind the brand bankrupt over unpaid player claims. At the time, BC.Game held one of Curaçao's brand-new LOK licences, announced with a press release in April 2024 that promised "legal compliance and global reach."

Seven months later the licence was gone, the players were still unpaid, and nearly two years on it is still not publicly confirmed that any of them got their money back.

Here is what the record actually shows, and what it should change about how you read a licence.

What the court actually decided

The petitions were filed in October 2024 by SBGOK, the Foundation for the Representation of Victims of Online Gaming, a Curaçao foundation run by Dutch journalist Nardy Cramm that litigates against licensed operators on behalf of players.

On 12 November 2024, two companies were declared bankrupt: Blockdance B.V., the earlier operator of BC.Game, and Small House B.V., which had taken the operation over during 2024. Reporting differs on whether the handover was February or April.

One detail appears inconsistently in trade coverage. Some outlets placed the ruling in Curaçao's Court of First Instance; SBGOK's own case page says the Court of Appeal. Both can be right. Curaçao has a single judicial body, the Joint Court of Justice of Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten and of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, whose judges sit at first instance and on appeal. Reporting also indicates an initial petition was rejected before SBGOK appealed successfully.

The amount is reported in a range rather than a single agreed figure. Coverage variously put the player claims at "over $2 million," "more than $2.1 million" and "more than $2.5 million." We have not seen a single audited total, so treat roughly $2 million to $2.5 million as the documented band, not a precise number.

NEXT.io reported that the largest single claim came from an Indonesian player who deposited over $1 million in USDT equivalent and could not withdraw it, with BC.Game citing grounds including self-referral and multiple accounts. That specific claim is disputed and was not, as far as we can find, separately adjudicated on the merits.

The core finding was structural. Small House argued it had bought assets, the website and marketing operation, without the liabilities. The claimants argued the business simply continued. The court found Small House had ceased to pay, and reporting notes it also failed to maintain the local bank account its licence required.

BC.Game rejected the ruling. Its statement: "We strongly disagree with the court's latest rulings and we will spare no expenses to appeal this erroneous judgment which failed to give due consideration to facts." It separately assured sponsorship partners, Leicester City among them, that it had "no issues with liquidity."

The licence went before the regulator could take it

The regulator, then the Gaming Control Board, gave Small House until 29 November 2024 to answer its concerns, with revocation on the table.

BC.Game did not wait. On 5 December 2024 it withdrew its Curaçao licence voluntarily, calling the jurisdiction "increasingly hostile," saying legal protections for operators were "severely lacking," and arguing that Curaçao's bankruptcy law "can easily be exploited by malicious actors."

That sequence matters. A voluntary withdrawal one week after a regulator's deadline is not the same event as a clean exit, and it leaves a thinner public record than a revocation would have.

Then it got thinner still. In September 2025, the regulator, renamed the Curaçao Gaming Authority when the LOK took full effect on 24 December 2024, removed Small House B.V. from its public list of cancelled licences. Rabidi N.V. came off the same list. The CGA did not publicly explain why. Anything a player might have relied on as a public red flag is no longer on the register.

What happened to the people who were owed money

This is the part the industry has been quiet about, and the part we will not overstate.

A bankruptcy ruling is not a payment. It opens an estate that a trustee has to fund, investigate and distribute from. In BC.Game's case, that process appears to have stalled rather than paid out.

NEXT.io reported in August 2025 that the appointed trustee, Barbara Nagelmakers, had filed paperwork to reverse the original bankruptcy order, citing among her reasons the low likelihood of recovering the claims. SBGOK, the foundation that brought the case, was reportedly unable to keep funding the bankruptcy estate after its own lawyer raised governance concerns.

We could not confirm, as of publication, that any distribution has been made to the claimant players. We could also not confirm that the bankruptcy has been formally annulled. SBGOK's site still invites affected players to register claims and says nothing about payments made.

So the honest statement is this: the debt is documented as claimed and was found sufficient to support a bankruptcy order; whether it was ever settled, written off, or extinguished by a reversal is not publicly established. We are not asserting it is still outstanding. We are saying nobody has shown that it was paid.

Which licence BC.Game shows now

BC.Game's own site states it is operated by Twocent Technology Limited, a Belize company (registration 000041939), under licence ALSI-202410011-FI1 from the Autonomous Island of Anjouan, Union of Comoros. We have not independently verified that entry in the Anjouan register.

Anjouan is lighter-touch than Curaçao, and Curaçao was already the loose one. For a player, three things changed at once: the contracting entity, the country, and the regulator, which has no comparable record of forcing payouts.

Why the strength of the authority is the whole point

Compare this with what a stronger legal chain produced. In September 2024, the Dutch Supreme Court upheld a ruling that Cyberluck Curaçao N.V., as a master licence holder, was liable for a sublicensee's failure to pay a player's winnings. That case, also driven by SBGOK, worked because there was an accountable entity, a court with reach over it, and published judgments.

A licence is worth only the enforcement behind it. Ask three things of any regulator: does it publish a searchable register with status changes, has it ever actually moved money back to players, and are its decisions testable in a court that publishes judgments?

Curaçao under the old system scored poorly on all three, which is why Blockdance was simultaneously facing a Dutch penalty order of 280,000 euros per week up to 840,000 euros for serving the Netherlands unlicensed. Anjouan has no comparable public track record at all.

How to check this yourself

Three checks, none needing a lawyer.

Find the operating entity, not the brand. It is in the footer and the terms. The brand does not owe you a withdrawal; the company does.

Search the regulator's register for that exact company name. For Curaçao, that is the CGA register at cga.cw. Registers get edited, so screenshot what you find.

Search the courts. Curaçao and the wider Dutch Caribbean publish judgments on rechtspraak.nl under ECLI codes beginning NL:OGHACMB and NL:OGEAC. Search the company, not the brand.

How 99Gamblers treats this

BC.Game is the case that made us write our rules down.

Confirmed unpaid player debt zeroes a score. Not a deduction, a zero. An operator that has not paid players has failed the only test that matters.

A withdrawn or disputed licence caps a score at 30. Surrendering a licence a week after a regulator's deadline caps you exactly as a revocation would.

BC.Game currently sits on our watchlist. That is a record of an unresolved matter, not a rating and not an endorsement. We are not telling you the money is still owed, because we cannot confirm that. We are telling you that a licensed operator was found by a court to have stopped paying, that the licence vanished before the regulator ruled, and that no public record shows the players made whole.

If the estate publishes a distribution, or a court formally annuls the bankruptcy, we will update this page and say so.

What the BC.Game bankruptcy ruling taught players about "licensed" casinos

What the court actually decided

The licence went before the regulator could take it

What happened to the people who were owed money

Which licence BC.Game shows now

Why the strength of the authority is the whole point

How to check this yourself

How 99Gamblers treats this

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