Does Supplying Gaming Operators Make My Cyprus Company Regulated?

Why suppliers are being asked this now

Two Maltese legal notices took effect on 1 October 2026. Legal Notice 86 of 2026 narrowed the value added tax exemption for gambling, and Legal Notice 84 of 2026 replaced the gaming tax structure. Operators are reassessing what they buy, from whom, and on what basis.

The questions are landing on suppliers. A company writing software, hosting infrastructure, verifying identities or supplying content to a gaming operator is being asked to confirm where it sits, and the answer is less obvious than it looks.

A supplier can be inside the gaming framework without ever taking a bet, holding player funds or dealing with a player.

The Third Schedule, which is the part founders do not expect

Malta's Gaming Authorisations Regulations divide business to business activity in two.

A critical gaming supply requires a Critical Gaming Supply licence. Regulation 3(1) provides that no person shall provide or carry out a gaming service or provide a critical gaming supply from Malta or to any person in Malta, or through a Maltese legal entity, except with a valid licence or an exemption. The reference to a Maltese legal entity matters, because it reaches a supply routed through a Maltese company irrespective of where the work is done.

A material gaming supply is listed in the Third Schedule. The list includes:

• manufacturing, placing on the market, distributing, supplying, leasing or transferring a gaming device
• providing risk management services for the operation of a licensable game
• providing event, content and, or odds
• providing fraud management services for the operation of a licensable game
• holding and, or managing player funds
• providing services relating to customer due diligence
• providing services related to player identity verification
• providing co-location services and other managed information technology services, including cloud computing services and, or decentralised hosting protocols, where these do not amount to a critical gaming supply

The last four are the ones that catch people. A compliance software vendor, an identity verification provider, a fraud scoring service or a hosting business can be supplying a material gaming supply while regarding itself as an ordinary technology company.

Why the customer asks, and why a certificate is commercial rather than compulsory

A material gaming supplier may request a material gaming supply certificate under regulation 20(1). It is not required to hold one.

Regulation 20(2) is where the pressure comes from. An authorised person making use of a material gaming supply must ensure either that the supplier holds the certificate, or that the supply is otherwise approved by the Authority on a case by case basis. Where an authorised person receives material gaming supplies from a third party who holds no certificate, that authorised person assumes full regulatory responsibility for those supplies.

So the operator carries the supplier's regulatory risk. That is the reason an uncertified supplier finds the question raised in procurement, in renewal negotiations and in diligence, and it is a commercial consideration rather than a legal obligation on the supplier itself.

What changed on 1 October, and what it means for a supplier's pricing

Two changes run in opposite directions for a supplier, and neither is a new charge on the supplier.

Gaming tax does not reach a business to business supplier. Under the substituted regulation 3(1) of the Gaming Tax Regulations, gaming tax is payable by a person offering a gaming service to a player. A supplier of content, platform or services to an operator is not doing that. The rates introduced on 1 October, being 15 percent on Type 1 services, 10 percent on Types 2, 3 and 4, and 5 percent within controlled gaming premises or for junkets, apply to the operator.

Your customer's recoverable cost base changed. Part Two of the Fifth Schedule to the Maltese VAT Act is headed exemptions without credit, so a supply inside it carries no right to deduct input tax. Narrowing item 9 moved a range of gambling supplies into the taxable column, and the Malta Tax and Customs Administration described the consequence as a natural right of recovery of eligible input tax.

For a supplier, the practical effect is that an operator who previously could not deduct the tax on your invoice may now be able to. The net cost of the same fee to that customer can fall, which is a fact worth knowing before a renewal conversation rather than after one.

The Cyprus side, which is where the company actually sits

Three questions arise for a Cyprus company supplying gaming operators, and none of them is answered by the Maltese position.

Whether the supply is taxable or exempt for Cyprus value added tax. Table B of the Seventh Schedule to the VAT Law N.95(I)/2000 exempts the supply of lottery tickets and horse racing or football pools coupons, the acceptance of bets and other games of chance. It is an exemption without credit. Ordinary business to business services supplied to a taxable customer are not within it, but where any part of a company's activity is characterised as the acceptance of bets or the conduct of a game of chance, input tax attributable to that part is not deductible and a partial attribution method is required.

Registration, including on what the company buys. Article 11 deems the recipient of services from abroad to have made the supply, and its value counts towards the ordinary 15,600 euro threshold in any twelve consecutive months. A company buying platform, hosting or compliance services from outside Cyprus can become registrable on its purchases while selling nothing locally.

Whether any part of the activity touches players located in Cyprus. This is the question to settle first, because the answer is not commercial. Article 84 of the Betting Law 37(I)/2019 makes it a felony to provide services for the conduct in the Republic of online casino games of chance, carrying up to five years imprisonment or a fine of up to 300,000 euro, or both. Articles 85 and 86 prohibit betting exchanges and spread betting on the same terms.

Chance, skill, and who has to prove which

Suppliers building competitive or prize based features often assume a product is a skill game and therefore outside the framework. Malta places that burden the other way.

Regulation 7 of S.L. 583.05 vests the Authority with sole discretion to classify an activity as a game of chance, a game of skill or otherwise, on the considerations listed in the Sixth Schedule, after taking into account submissions from the operator or promoter and any research or publication from an authoritative source. The burden of proving that an activity is a skill game rests at all times on the party operating or promoting it. Regulation 8 allows the Authority to rule that a game is a controlled skill game.

The Sixth Schedule considerations begin with the presence of random draws and their effect on the outcome, and whether the game is played for money or prizes with a monetary value.

Two details are worth holding alongside that. Type 1 gaming services expressly include virtual sports games, so a simulated event is treated as a game of chance rather than as a sporting event. And the Cyprus definition of a bet reaches only events in which natural persons participate and which actually take place, so a simulated event is outside what Cyprus licenses at all.

One question the statutes leave open

Paragraph 5 of Table B refers to the acceptance of bets and other games of chance without distinguishing by medium. Silence on medium is not confirmation that remote supplies fall inside it. No Cyprus circular or decided case settling the point has been identified, and commentary asserting that the exemption applies to bets supplied electronically has not been traced to an instrument.

It is left open here rather than answered. A value added tax position taken on an untested reading is a position that has to be defended later, and where the underlying activity is in any event prohibited, the treatment does not arise.