Danish Casinos

Want the best online casinos in Denmark? Below is our expert selection of Denmark-friendly casino sites with fast, secure transactions.

Denmark is home to a mature online gambling market whose combined revenue amounted to $1.08 billion in 2023. The online casino vertical accounts for the largest share of these profits, followed by online lotteries and sports betting. In recent years, the Nordic country has been witnessing a pronounced shift in consumer preferences toward remote gambling, largely due to increased accessibility and greater convenience.

Danish players have a decent choice of legal gambling options, including online casino games, sports betting, peer-to-peer poker, bingo, and lotteries. The provision of these activities requires a license from the Danish Gambling Authority (Spillemyndigheden), which also regulates them in digital form under the Danish Act on Gambling. The local watchdog has handed licenses to over 40 remote sportsbooks and casinos at the time of publication, including some of the biggest brands in the iGaming industry.

On this page, readers will find overviews of the best online casinos currently catering to players from Denmark, alongside extensive regulatory and licensing information. The most common deposit methods used by Danish players and the popular types of games they will encounter at online casinos are also covered in this article, so let’s dive right in.

Denmark’s Stance on Online Gambling

Five years ago, the state-owned Danske Spil was the only company within Denmark that had been issued a license allowing it to offer casino games and sports betting services to Danish residents. All foreign gaming operators were barred from providing players in the country with real-money gambling services. License applications from international operators were not accepted, either. This left Danish players with an extremely limited number of legal gambling options. Nevertheless, many international gambling providers accepted wagers from Danes and catered to their needs by offering websites that supported the Danish language as well as payment methods suitable for players from the country.

However, since Denmark is a member state of the European Union, the European Commission intervened, forcing the country to take its first steps toward market liberalization. In 2008, the European Court of Justice addressed the issue and challenged the state monopoly established by Danske Spil. A new piece of legislation, known as the Danish Act on Gambling, was drafted to allow foreign gambling operators to apply for local licenses.

The process of opening the Danish market was by no means quick or easy. The first draft of the legislation that was to liberalize the market was released in 2010 but met with strong opposition from Danske Spil and the land-based casinos operating in the country. The land-based companies were dissatisfied with the fact that the new legislation proposed lower taxes for licensed online gambling providers. The draft stipulated that taxes on land-based casinos should start at 45% of their gross revenue, while those imposed on online gambling operators were significantly lower at 20% of gross gaming revenue and 28% for corporate taxes.

The European Commission once again stepped in and ruled in favor of the proposed taxes, which helped the liberalization of the Danish gambling market move forward. As of 2012, the Danish Act on Gambling was officially enforced. The same year saw the establishment of the Danish Gambling Authority, locally known as Spillemyndigheden, which is responsible for the supervision, regulation, and licensing of gambling operators in the country.

Online gambling operators interested in offering their services to residents of Denmark are now required first to obtain a license from the Danish Gambling Authority. So far, this regulatory body has issued over twenty licenses to international gambling operators, including industry heavyweights such as bet365, 888, and bwin. Several unlicensed and therefore unauthorized operators have already been blacklisted. What is more, the Danish government has the authority to instruct financial institutions to block transactions to and from online casinos that have been added to the blacklist.

Web-based gambling providers interested in operating in Denmark can apply for several types of licenses – for sports betting, virtual casino games, and online poker. The new legislation works to the advantage of poker players especially, since it allows regulated poker platforms to pool Danes with fellow poker players from across the world. This is not the case in some European countries where tournament participants are allowed to sit at tables with players from their own country only.

However, there are still a great number of online gambling providers that accept players from Denmark without having a license from the local authorities. Most operators enable players to load the websites in their native language and choose from a wide range of convenient payment methods that support DKK as a currency.

Most Popular Danish Online Casinos

Identifying the best online casinos is no picnic, as multiple factors should govern your choice, including software and range of games, withdrawal speed, accepted payment methods, mobile compatibility, licensing, and overall reputation in the iGaming community. We have considered all these and more during our extensive vetting process to deliver this unbiased curation of the top 5 gambling sites that accept real-money players from Denmark. Browse the list and read our brief overviews to find the Danish casinos that best suit your individual preferences.

Spillemyndigheden – the Danish Gambling Authority

As mentioned previously, the Danish Gambling Authority was founded right after the Danish Act on Gambling came into effect. This governmental body regulates the majority of gambling forms in the country and issues licenses to foreign gambling providers that wish to offer their services to Danish residents.

International companies can apply for two types of licenses. Type A licenses are valid for online sports betting services, while Type B licenses cover virtual casino games and poker. These licenses are not transferable and need to be renewed every five years.

There are a number of requirements operators must meet in order to obtain a license from the Danish Gambling Authority. For instance, players’ funds should be kept in a separate, secure bank account, while the casinos’ accounting system must be available for audits at all times and should be updated daily.

Another condition dictates that the operators’ software must be up to par with the technical standards outlined by the Danish Gambling Authority. The available games should be tested for fairness and randomness by accredited testing agencies. Before operators are granted a license, they need to provide proof of their compliance with the Appropriate Financial Operation Regulations of the Danish Gambling Authority.

Taxes Imposed on Online Gambling in Denmark

The good news for Danish players is that no taxes are imposed on the winnings they generate when betting online, regardless of the amount won. However, this is not the case for licensed gambling operators. All operators approved by the Danish Gambling Authority are required to pay a license fee of DKK250,000. This applies to a single license. Companies that apply for both Type A and Type B licenses are subject to a fee of DKK350,000.

Since the licenses are valid for five years, licensees must pay an annual fee that depends on their yearly revenue and varies anywhere between DKK50,000 and DKK1,500,000. Companies operating on Danish territory are also subject to a 28% corporate tax rate, plus a 20% tax on their gross gaming revenue.