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Aristotelis Kourtelis, Licensing & Player Protection Analyst
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Licensing & Player Protection Analyst

Aristotelis Kourtelis

Aristotelis Kourtelis is the Licensing and Player Protection Analyst at LSM99, and the reason a brand does not reach the top of a list on its bonus alone. He joined in 2024 and works at the front of the review process, before any scoring happens. LSM99 rates every casino across six weighted sections, licensing and safety, payouts, bonus fairness, game range, support and mobile, and Aristotelis owns the first of those. If the licensing work fails, the other five sections do not rescue the brand. He reads bonus terms, KYC triggers and self-exclusion rules closely, because those are the clauses that decide whether a win is really a win.

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  • Licensing
  • Player protection
  • KYC and AML
  • Responsible gambling
34
Pages written
35
Pages fact-checked
2024
At LSM99 since

About Aristotelis Kourtelis

His first move is never the footer. A licence badge is an image, and an image proves nothing, so he takes the licence number printed on the site and opens the regulator's own public register entry for it. He checks that the entry is live rather than lapsed or surrendered, and that the company named on the register is the company running the site and taking the deposit. Then he checks scope. A licence from the UKGC, Spelinspektionen, the KSA, the ANJ or Spillemyndigheden covers players in that regulator's market. An MGA or Curacao licence is a different thing, and it does not give a reader in the UK, Sweden or Denmark the protections a national licence would. The question is answered per market, not once for the brand.

He also handles the harder edges of the site, the non-GamStop, no-KYC, casino utan spelpaus and casino uden om ROFUS pages. Those pages exist because people search for them, and the useful thing is to describe them accurately rather than sell them. He keeps the framing honest about what a player gives up by stepping outside a national scheme. A GamStop, Spelpaus or ROFUS registration does not follow you offshore. The dispute route changes, and often shortens to whatever the operator agrees to. Statutory deposit limits may not apply at all. He states that plainly on the page.

Player protection tooling gets tested rather than summarised from a help article. He sets a deposit limit and checks whether it applies immediately, looks for reality checks and session reminders, and follows the self-exclusion flow far enough to see how long it lasts and how easily it reverses. He owns the responsible gambling pages and the legal section, and fact-checks regulatory and compliance claims on other reviewers' pages, so a sentence about a licence, a limit or a scheme has been checked before it goes live.

How Aristotelis checks a licence

Licence checking on LSM99 is a fixed sequence, not a glance at the footer. Each step has to pass before the next one matters, and a brand that fails an early step is not scored on payouts or bonuses at all. These are the four checks he runs on every casino, in the same order, for every market a page is written for.

  1. 1

    Open the register entry

    He finds the licence number on the site, usually in the footer or the terms, and opens the matching entry on the regulator's own public register. The badge itself is ignored. What counts is whether the number resolves to a live entry, whether the status reads as active rather than lapsed or surrendered, and whether the register lists the domain the reader is being sent to.

  2. 2

    Match the operating entity

    The company on the register has to be the company running the site and holding the money. He compares the licensee name against the operator named in the terms and on the payment and account pages. Group structures are normal, but an unexplained mismatch is a problem, because a player's claim sits with the entity that took the deposit.

  3. 3

    Check scope and market

    A licence is only useful where it applies. He records which regulator issued it, the UKGC, Spelinspektionen, the KSA, the ANJ, Spillemyndigheden, the MGA or Curacao, what products it permits, and whether it covers players in the country the page targets. An offshore licence is written up as offshore, and the page says which protections the reader loses.

  4. 4

    Test the tools inside

    Claims about safer gambling controls are checked from a registered account. He sets a deposit limit and notes when it starts applying, opens the reality check and time-out settings, and walks the self-exclusion flow to see the available durations and the reversal rules. Anything advertised on the site but missing from the account is recorded as missing.

Red flags that stop a listing

Some findings cost a brand points in the licensing and safety section. Others end the review. Aristotelis keeps the second group short and applies it consistently, because a rule that bends for a good bonus is not a rule. These four findings either remove a casino from a list or push it well down one.

  • Badge without a register

    A regulator logo in the footer with no licence number, or a number that returns nothing on the register, stops the review there. The same applies when the entry is lapsed or surrendered, or names a domain the operator no longer runs. Unverifiable licensing is treated as no licensing.

  • Discretionary void clauses

    Terms that let the operator cancel a win, close an account or confiscate a balance at its own discretion, with no defined breach and no appeal route, are a listing blocker. So are clauses reserving the right to change bonus terms after a deposit is made. A win removable on judgement alone is not a win.

  • KYC only at withdrawal

    Deposits taken instantly while identity checks appear for the first time at cash-out is a pattern that delays payment and traps funds. He notes when verification is requested, what documents are demanded and whether the process is described anywhere before a player pays in. Late KYC pushes a brand down.

  • Missing protection tools

    Deposit limits that cannot be found, self-exclusion that works only by emailing support, reality checks that do not fire, or a cooling-off option that reverses on the next login all count against a brand. Where a national scheme applies, a site that ignores GamStop, Spelpaus or ROFUS is not listed for that market.

Written by Aristotelis Kourtelis

Fact-checked by Aristotelis Kourtelis