Faroe Islands Online Casino Guide 2026: Is It Legal?
Is online casino gambling legal in the Faroe Islands? We cut through the affiliate noise and explain the real regulatory picture — no license for foreign casinos, no ROFUS, no regulator.
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We don’t write sugarcoated reviews to please casinos. If the payouts are slow or the bonus terms are garbage, we say it like it is. No filters, no bullshit. So we went looking for a straight answer on whether online casino gambling is legal in the Faroe Islands. We weren’t satisfied with the usual affiliate-site copy-paste. We went to the Danish tax authority’s own legal guidance and the actual, current Faroese gambling statute instead — not an older, already-replaced version. That’s a mistake we caught in our own research before publishing this. Here’s what we found: it’s more nuanced than our Greenland guide’s story, not simply its opposite.
Quick Takeaways
The Danish Gambling Act (Spilleloven) explicitly excludes the Faroe Islands, just like Greenland, under § 76 of the Act.
Unlike Greenland’s dedicated gambling law, the Faroe Islands’ domestic law is narrower. It channels legal gambling through a single state-linked monopoly, Sp/f Ítróttavedding, rather than an open licensing system.
That monopoly’s law does cover online games, including online betting and casino-style games. It’s not silent on the internet, and it currently operates through a licensed partnership with Danske Spil.
If you’re looking at a typical Malta- or Curaçao-licensed “online casino” from a Google search, that operator is outside this domestic channel entirely. No Faroese or Danish authority licenses, supervises, or oversees it.
Playing at one of those foreign-licensed sites isn’t illegal for Faroese residents, because no Faroese or Danish law addresses it either way. That’s a thinner protection than an explicit legal carve-out, and worth understanding.
There’s no evidence of any land-based casino in the Faroe Islands. And neither applicable law contains a provision that could license one.
ROFUS, Denmark’s self-exclusion register, has no clear legal basis to cover the Faroe Islands — the law behind it doesn’t extend there.
Is Online Casino Gambling Legal in the Faroe Islands?
Short answer: no domestic license and no domestic oversight for the international casino brands most people mean when they search this. But there’s nothing illegal about using them either.
What the Law and the Regulator Actually Say
The Danish Gambling Act (Spilleloven) is the law that regulates online casinos, sports betting, and licensing for Denmark. Its final provision is unambiguous: “§ 76. Loven gælder ikke for Færøerne og Grønland” — “The Act does not apply to the Faroe Islands and Greenland.” The Danish tax authority’s own legal guidance says the same thing in plain language: “Hverken Grønland eller Færøerne er omfattet af spilleloven”. That translates to: the Gambling Act doesn’t cover Greenland or the Faroe Islands.
Spillemyndigheden, the Danish Gambling Authority, backs this up directly. In its own words: “The Danish Gambling Authority’s obligation to conduct anti money laundering supervision covers certain games in Greenland, but not in the Faroe Islands.” Its site currently publishes a dedicated “Gambling in Greenland” page describing Danish oversight there. No equivalent page for the Faroe Islands exists anywhere on the regulator’s site.
What This Means for Foreign-Licensed Casinos
For any operator licensed abroad (Malta, Curaçao, wherever) that simply sells to Faroese residents without any Faroese arrangement in place, the result is the same. Nobody in the Faroe Islands issues them a license, nobody supervises them, and no Danish authority will hear a complaint about them either. Nothing in Faroese law prohibits a resident from using one of these sites, but “not prohibited” isn’t the same as “protected.” There’s no local authority that will step in if a site refuses a withdrawal, mishandles your data, or runs a rigged game. You’re relying entirely on whatever license and reputation the operator holds abroad.
That’s the picture for foreign operators acting alone. It’s not, however, the whole picture for online gambling in the Faroe Islands — see the next two sections.
How the Faroe Islands Differ from Greenland’s Gambling Framework
This is the part most competitor sites get wrong. We’ll be upfront: our own first draft of this guide got this detail wrong too. We only fixed it after we re-checked it against the current Faroese statute rather than an already-repealed version.
Greenland’s Open Licensing Door
Greenland and the Faroe Islands are both excluded from the Danish Gambling Act in exactly the same way, on paper (§ 76 covers both). Greenland then went further and passed its own dedicated gambling law. That law lets operators apply for a revenue-restricted license directly from Spillemyndigheden, provided they’re established in Greenland. That’s a real, working, relatively open legal channel. We covered it in detail in our Greenland online casino guide.
The Faroe Islands’ Single-Door Monopoly
The Faroe Islands took a different path, not no path. Its domestic gambling law (currently Løgtingslóg nr. 51 from 2011, as amended in 2014) funnels all legal gambling through a single state-linked monopoly, Sp/f Ítróttavedding. The Faroese government owns 20% of that monopoly, the Faroese Sports Federation owns 50%, and the Faroese Youth Council owns the remaining 30%. The government can license that monopoly to run betting, numbers games, lotteries, and net games directly. It can also contract with an outside operator that Spillemyndigheden or another Nordic regulator has already approved, letting Faroese residents legally access that operator’s games. In practice, that channel exists and is active: Sp/f Ítróttavedding’s own website confirms a running partnership with Danske Spil. Faroese players can access “a range of games online” through Danske Spil’s platform, and the proceeds flow back into Faroese sports and youth funding.
What the Difference Actually Means
So the real difference isn’t “Greenland has a channel, the Faroe Islands has none.” It’s that Greenland’s channel is a relatively open licensing door that any qualifying operator can apply through. The Faroe Islands’ channel, by contrast, is a single locked door that only Sp/f Ítróttavedding holds the key to. So far, it’s only opened that door for one partner, Danske Spil. Everyone else selling into the Faroese market from abroad without going through that door hits the same practical result — it’s the same regulatory gap we described above. Don’t assume “Kingdom of Denmark territory” means uniform gambling rules. And don’t assume “no separate law” means “no domestic mechanism” either. Both territories built something, just very differently shaped somethings.
Why There Are No Land-Based Casinos in the Faroe Islands
We couldn’t find a government or tourism-board source stating outright that no land-based casino exists. But the legal picture explains why one couldn’t operate lawfully even if it wanted to. The Danish Gambling Act’s provisions for licensing land-based casinos don’t apply in the Faroe Islands (excluded along with everything else under § 76). And the Faroese domestic law only licenses Sp/f Ítróttavedding for betting, numbers games, net games, and lotteries. It contains no category for a physical casino with table games at all. Between the two, there’s no legal pathway to a licensed brick-and-mortar casino in the Faroe Islands today.
A small population (roughly 55,300 people as of early 2026, per Hagstova Føroya, the Faroese national statistics office) is the other obvious factor. It simply doesn’t support the kind of commercial gambling floor that makes a physical casino viable. And there’s no licensing route to build one, on top of that.
What IS Legally Regulated: Betting, Lottery, and Online Games via the State Monopoly
Sp/f Ítróttavedding’s License and the Danske Spil Partnership
Domestic Faroese gambling law centers entirely on one entity: Sp/f Ítróttavedding. The Faroese government, the Faroese Sports Federation (ÍSF), and the Faroese Youth Council (FUR) created it and jointly own it. Under Løgtingslóg nr. 51 from 2011 (as amended 2014), the government can license Sp/f Ítróttavedding to organize betting, numbers games, lotteries, and net/online games, explicitly. License terms: at least 50% of stakes must come back to players as winnings. And a license runs for a maximum of 5 years at a time.
The same law lets Sp/f Ítróttavedding contract with an outside betting or gaming company. Spillemyndigheden or a regulator in another Nordic country must already have approved that company. The government must also sign off on the deal. That’s the mechanism behind the Danske Spil partnership. Faroese residents can play a range of Danske Spil’s online games. Money wagered from the Faroe Islands flows back to Sp/f Ítróttavedding. The law even sets a specific tax rate for this: a 15% levy on gross gaming revenue applies to “betting games, casino games and similar” offered online. That language explicitly contemplates online casino-style games, not just sports betting.
Lottery Games and Where the Money Goes
There isn’t a separate lottery operator alongside this. “Lottery” (happadráttur) is simply one of the categories Sp/f Ítróttavedding itself can hold a license for. That resolves the vague “lotteries” reference on our own homepage.
The law splits profits four ways: 60% goes to the Faroese Sports Federation for sports purposes, and 20% goes to the Faroese Youth Council for child and youth programs. The law then gives 15% to the Ministry of Culture to support child and youth work, and 5% to Meginfelag teirra Brekaðu, the federation of associations for disabled people.
Choosing a Safe Online Casino as a Faroese Player
There’s a real distinction here. If you’re playing through Sp/f Ítróttavedding’s own site or its Danske Spil partnership, you’re inside the one channel Faroese law actually recognizes. Danish licensing standards and oversight stand behind that channel. If you’re playing at a “top-rated” international casino from an affiliate list, you’re outside that channel entirely. That’s the kind of site most searches for “Faroe Islands online casino” actually turn up. Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) and Curaçao are the two licenses you’ll see most often among sites that accept Faroese players. Neither of those regulators has any Faroese recognition or Faroese-specific obligations. MGA-licensed operators tend to carry stronger player-protection requirements. Curaçao licenses are far more permissive, which isn’t automatically a dealbreaker but does mean you’re leaning more heavily on the operator’s own reputation.
We’re not going to hand you a “top 5 casinos” list built on affiliate commissions and dressed up as recommendations. That’s exactly the kind of thin content this niche is full of. We’re not going to do it without verified, vetted operators to back it up. What we will tell you: check the license is real and current, and read the actual withdrawal terms before you deposit. Don’t trust a site just because it’s the first Google result. Plenty of the sites ranking for Faroese gambling searches get the legal basics wrong. That includes, until we caught it, an earlier draft of this very guide.
The Faroese króna is pegged 1:1 to the Danish krone, and Faroese residents use DKK interchangeably for most transactions. That means most Faroese players will be depositing and withdrawing in DKK regardless of which currency a site nominally lists. Standard options at foreign-licensed casinos (debit/credit cards, bank transfers, and e-wallets) generally work fine for Faroese residents. One thing to watch: MitID is Denmark’s digital ID system for fast verification and payments at many Danish-facing sites. It may behave inconsistently for Faroese residents depending on how they registered their account. That’s similar to friction we’ve flagged for Greenlandic players. Confirm your verification method works before relying on it for a withdrawal.
Taxes on Casino Winnings for Faroese Residents
We’re not going to guess on this one. Tax treatment of gambling winnings for Faroese residents is genuinely unconfirmed in our research, including this fact-check pass. TAKS, the Faroese tax authority, publishes its own guidance that we weren’t able to fully verify against. Don’t take any blog’s word for it, including implicitly ours until this is verified. If real money is involved, check with TAKS directly before you assume either way.
Responsible Gambling in the Faroe Islands
This is where the regulatory gap matters most. Most of what’s available to Faroese players by way of “online casino” falls outside any Faroese-recognized channel. Denmark’s self-exclusion system, ROFUS, rests on obligations that attach to operators licensed under the Danish Gambling Act. That Act doesn’t extend to the Faroe Islands, so there’s no clear legal basis for ROFUS to formally cover Faroese residents by default. Even if you previously self-excluded through ROFUS while living in Denmark, that protection doesn’t reliably follow you to a Faroese address. It also does nothing at all against operators outside Denmark’s licensing system, which is most of what’s available to you.
Practically, that means self-exclusion has to happen operator by operator. Most licensed casinos have their own self-exclusion and deposit-limit tools in account settings. Third-party device or site-blocking software (like Gamban or BetBlocker) can back that up across every operator at once, not just one. If you or someone close to you needs support, Nordic-wide helplines and general gambling-support services remain reachable regardless of the regulatory gap. The absence of a local authority doesn’t mean there’s nowhere to turn.
FAQ
Is it illegal to play online casino games in the Faroe Islands?
No. There’s no law prohibiting Faroese residents from playing at foreign-licensed online casinos. That’s because no Faroese or Danish law addresses it at all. It’s not because of an explicit legal carve-out the way some other Nordic territories have. It’s unregulated for those operators, not illegal.
Why are there no casinos in the Faroe Islands?
No land-based casino appears to exist there. Neither the Danish Gambling Act (excluded from the Faroe Islands) nor Faroese domestic law contains any provision that could license one. On top of that, a small population wouldn’t easily support one commercially either.
Does ROFUS work in the Faroe Islands?
There’s no clear legal basis for it to. ROFUS obligations attach to operators licensed under the Danish Gambling Act, which doesn’t extend to the Faroe Islands. You’ll need to set up self-exclusion there directly with individual operators or through blocking software.
Is the Faroe Islands’ gambling law the same as Greenland’s?
No, but it’s not “no law” either. The Danish Gambling Act excludes both territories. But Greenland passed a separate law that lets any qualifying operator apply for a license directly from the Danish regulator. The Faroe Islands’ law instead channels everything through one state-linked monopoly, Sp/f Ítróttavedding. That monopoly currently has a single online partnership with Danske Spil — a narrower, differently-shaped mechanism, not an absent one. See our Greenland online casino guide for the full breakdown of how that framework works.
What gambling is legally regulated in the Faroe Islands?
Betting, lotteries, and online games run through Sp/f Ítróttavedding, the state-linked monopoly. That includes, via its Danske Spil partnership, a range of online games. Faroese law even sets a specific 15% gross-gaming-revenue levy on online betting and casino-style games offered through that channel. The Faroe Islands doesn’t license or regulate any other online casino operating outside that channel — and that’s most of what shows up in a typical Google search.
Related guides
If you’re comparing gambling frameworks across Nordic self-governing territories, see our Greenland online casino guide and our Åland online casino guide. All three look similar on the surface but land in genuinely different legal positions.
