Ireland’s new GRAI opens public consultations on licensing rules. With timelines still unclear, operators & stakeholders urged to contribute.
There are interesting times ahead in Ireland as the Gambling Authority of Ireland (GRAI) has officially opened consultations.
On the GRAI website, the consultation dates provided are as follows:
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- Consultation Published: Monday, 7th April 2025
- Submission period closes: 5 pm on 5th May 2025
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Who can contribute?
Feedback is welcome from operators, the public, and other stakeholders connected to the Irish online gambling entertainment market.
Licensing Phases
Quite like the British White paper, the GRAI’s consultation will go through a series of phases, which is reconfirmed on the GRAI’s ‘Licensing Phasing’ page.
Regulatory authorities often take this approach to ensure that all voices are heard. From our point of view here at Casinoplusbonus, the slowly but surely approach is always the most strategic approach.
Source: We used the GRAI website news report as the source for this news piece. You can read the original report here – Public Consultation Now Open.
GRAI Lays Out Tentative Licensing Timeline As Licensing Terms Are Still Up For Debate
The Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland (GRAI) has offered its first look at the rollout plans for the new gambling licensing system—and while it’s good to finally have something on paper, nothing is set in stone just yet.
According to details published on the GRAI website, the current plan is to begin accepting Business-to-Consumer betting licensing applications as early as December 2025. This includes both in-person and online betting operations. Applications for remote gaming licensing are expected to follow towards the end of Q1 2026.
However, as the GRAI themselves point out, this timeline is provisional and subject to change. That’s worth underlining: these are not fixed dates, and any number of regulatory or political hurdles could still cause delays.
Once the application portal opens, operators can expect a multi-month review process. Every submission will be thoroughly examined to ensure all required documents are provided. Background checks on the applicant and careful vetting of the submitted materials will form part of the decision-making process when determining whether a licensing certificate is granted or refused.
Confirmed Licensing GRAI Certificates
At this time, the GRAI has said that operators (B2C) and software providers, sportsbetting data providers, and IT services (B2B), can still apply for licensing in Ireland.
Image Source: GRAI website
Why Is This Consultation Important?
At the heart of this process is the GRAI’s authority to draft and enact regulations under the new Gambling Regulation Act 2024. These aren’t guidelines or suggestions—these are legally binding rules.
The first wave of regulations currently under consultation includes:
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Application Fees: The proposed regulations will establish fees for all gambling licence types—whether betting or gaming, and whether in-person or remote (covered under Section 38 of the Act).
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Licence Duration: The second regulation set will determine how long each type of licence remains valid (Section 108).
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Additional Conditions: The third pillar includes extra licensing conditions the GRAI intends to impose under its enforcement powers (Section 129).
In short, these regulations will directly impact how much operators pay, how long their licences last, and what compliance obligations they must meet.
Existing Licences Remain Valid Amid Ongoing GRAI Consultations
The current set of licensing certificates is still in place. However, after some further research digging deeper into the GRAI website, we found another excellent source on the ‘Exisiting Licensees‘ page.
Along with the consultations covered in this news piece, the ‘Exisiting Licensees’ page confirms that there have been no changes yet. At least, reading between the lines, we can all reasonably assume that is the case. The GRAI says that until the new Gambling Regulation Act 2024 updates come into force, Ireland’s gambling regulations will remain unchanged. Therefore, the licensing authorities listed in the table accompanying this section are still in force.
As mentioned in our previous news report, ‘Irish Gambling Authority Officially Open‘, although the GRAI is officially open, those speaking on behalf of the GRAI have said that there is no offcial timeline for licensing certificates to come into force.
Within a week of the offcial opening and the ‘no official timeline’ statement, consultations have already begun, which I have to say took us by surprise, mainly because we didn’t expect the GRAI to move into consultation so quickly.
Existing Licensees in Ireland
| Activity | Licensing Authority |
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| Betting | Revenue Commissioners |
| Gaming Licence | Revenue Commissioners |
| Gaming Permit | An Garda Síochána |
| Lottery Permit | An Garda Síochána |
| Lottery Licence | District Courts |
| Totalisator Licences | Department of Finance |
A valid question from the Casinoplusbonus team: Could it be that the collaboration between the UKGC and GRAI just days after the newly formed Irish regulatory came online had anything to do with the sudden jump from ‘no offcial timeline’ to ‘consultations now in progress’?
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