Kraken review: licences, terms and gambling clause
Can you deposit to a casino from Kraken?
Kraken's terms restrict gambling without banning it outright, in Global Terms, Restrictions; a deposit to a casino not licensed where you live can breach them. Its terms let it freeze or suspend an account without prior notice. 2 registrations are confirmed in an issuing register. 3 points are not verified. No primary-source incident is recorded.
Documents last checked Reviewed by CryptoGuardz Register Desk, editorial desk
Disclosure: CryptoGuardz has no commercial relationship with Kraken, earns nothing if you open an account there, and has not contacted the company or given it notice of this entry. Every statement below is either a verbatim quote from a document Kraken publishes or a statement about a public register, and both carry the date they were read. Corrections go to the corrections page.
1. What this means for you
Consequences first, in the conditional, each one produced by a clause in a document Kraken publishes itself. Every line links to that clause, quoted in full and dated.
- Your account can be frozen without notice if Kraken decides it should be The suspension clause is discretionary and its list of grounds closes with a catch-all that swallows the list. The clause is quoted in full below.
- Your withdrawal can be suspended if Kraken decides an incident on the platform requires it The withdrawal clause sets no maximum duration and no external test for when an incident is resolved.
- You are probably not covered by the authorisation you can see if you are outside the European Economic Area The confirmed authorisation is held by Payward Europe Solutions Limited, and the entity that contracts with a user elsewhere is a different company.
- You cannot see who checked the proof of reserves, because the public page does not name them The page says an independent accountant performs the review but names no firm and no standard. A signer nobody can identify is not counted as an independent signer.
- You may breach the terms if the casino you fund is unlicensed where you live Kraken's clause covers unlawful, unregulated or illegal gambling rather than gambling as such. It is quoted in section 10.
2. What this entry records, and what it does not
This register publishes no number for an exchange. The payout score on the casino register has five defined components and a published arithmetic; no equivalent instrument exists here, and inventing one to fill the space would be a measurement nobody made. What follows instead is a field-by-field account of what was read, where it was read and when.
| Binding terms | Read in full 7 clauses captured verbatim across 7 topics, retrieved 2026-09-28 |
|---|---|
| Contracting entity | Payward Trading LtdJurisdiction British Virgin Islands · no company number stated |
| Registration check | 2 confirmed in the issuing authority's own registerESMA interim MiCA register, published CSV, read 2026-09-28 |
| Proof of reserves | Published, signer not namedNo signer named on the public page. |
| Insolvency outcome | Stated in the terms Quoted in section 7 |
| Withdrawal test | Not measuredNo first-party deposit or withdrawal has been run against this exchange. It would require funding an account, which this register has not done. Until it has, nothing here is a measurement of how fast the exchange pays. |
| On-chain reserve verification | Not measuredNo independent reconstruction of the Merkle tree or of the exchange's wallet holdings has been attempted. |
3. What we could not verify
Every entry carries this section. The gaps are published because a reader deserves the limits of the check as well as its results.
- The name of the accountant that performs the proof of reserves review. It is shown only to logged-in clients.
- The as-of date of the most recent proof of reserves review.
- The company number of Payward Trading Ltd. The terms give an address in Road Town, Tortola, and no number.
4. Who you are contracting with
The counterparty named in the binding document, not the brand on the website. This is the company a claim would be brought against and whose insolvency estate a user would be a creditor of.
| Named counterparty | Payward Trading Ltdsource · retrieved 2026-09-28 |
|---|---|
| Jurisdiction of incorporation | British Virgin Islands |
| Company number | Not disclosedNo company number appears in the binding document, so the entity cannot be looked up in any companies register from that document alone. |
kraken.com/legal says the Global Terms of Service "will apply to you unless you reside in Canada, the European Economic Area, or Brazil." Inside the Global Terms, the counterparty depends on where a user lives. For the default case the terms name: "Payward Trading Ltd, 2nd floor, Water’s Edge Building, Wickhams Cay II, Road Town, Tortola, VG1110, British Virgin Islands, if you live anywhere else in the world"
A US user contracts with Payward Interactive, Inc. in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and a UK user with Payward Ltd. in London. No company number is given for Payward Trading Ltd, although the same list gives one for Payward Services Limited (UK, 12861311) and Payward Digital Solutions Ltd. (Bermuda, 202403268).
governed by these Terms and the laws of the State of California and applicable United States law, without giving effect to any conflict of laws principles that may provide for the application of the law of another jurisdiction.kraken.com
5. Registrations, claimed and confirmed
2 of the registrations Kraken claims was found in the issuing authority's own public register. A confirmed registration covers the entity named on it and nothing else. Both confirmed rows are Irish companies. Neither covers Payward Trading Ltd, the British Virgin Islands company that contracts with a user outside the US, UK, Canada, Brazil and the EEA.
| Authority | Kind | Confirmed | What it covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Central Bank of Ireland (CBI), crypto-asset service provider authorisation under Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 (MiCA) | authorisation | yes | Confirmed. The official ESMA interim MiCA register of authorised crypto-asset service providers, downloaded 28 September 2026, carries the row: competent authority Central Bank of Ireland (CBI), entity Payward Europe Solutions Limited, LEI 254900641D8KNHUZYX24, authorisation notification date 25/06/2025, no end date. Services authorised: custody and administration; exchange of crypto-assets for funds and for other crypto-assets; execution of orders; placing; reception and transmission of orders; portfolio management; transfer services. It covers Payward Europe Solutions Limited only. |
| Central Bank of Ireland (CBI), crypto-asset service provider authorisation under Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 (MiCA) | authorisation | yes | Confirmed. The official ESMA interim MiCA register of authorised crypto-asset service providers, downloaded 28 September 2026, carries the row: competent authority Central Bank of Ireland (CBI), entity Payward Global Solutions Limited, LEI 9845003D98SCC2851458, authorisation notification date 25/06/2025, no end date. Services authorised: operation of a trading platform for crypto-assets. It covers Payward Global Solutions Limited only. |
| European Securities and Markets Authority (MiCA register of non-compliant entities) | adverse listing | not listed | Negative check. The official ESMA register of non-compliant entities providing crypto-asset services was downloaded on 28 September 2026 and searched. The string Kraken and The string Payward do not appear in it. |
6. Proof of reserves
Kraken publishes a proof of reserves and says an outside party performs it, but the public page names nobody, so it is not counted as independently signed. It says nothing about what the exchange owes.
| Signer | No dataNo signer is named on the public page. |
|---|---|
| Standard | None named on the public page. |
| As of | No dataNo as-of date could be read from the page at retrieval. |
| Covers liabilities | noNothing in the exercise addresses borrowings, loan obligations, off-chain claims, or whether the set of user balances in the tree is complete. |
| Page | kraken.comretrieved 2026-09-28 |
Our regular Proof of Reserves reviews make it easy for clients to verify the in-scope balances they hold are backed by real assetskraken.com
Kraken states that the review "is a procedure performed by an independent 3rd party accountant", but the public page does not name the firm. The page says a logged-in client sees "the date of the report, the provider and the assessment scope". The signer is recorded as no data for that reason: an unnamed accountant cannot be counted as an independent signer.
The page publishes its own limitations, which no other exchange in the register does in these terms: "A Proof of Reserves involves proving control over on-chain funds at the point in time of the review, but cannot prove exclusive possession of private keys that may have theoretically been duplicated by an attacker." And: "The procedure cannot identify any hidden encumbrances or prove that funds had not been borrowed for purposes of passing the review."
In-scope assets at the most recent review, per the page: Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, USD Coin, Tether and Ripple.
7. Custody, segregation and insolvency
What the binding document says about where your coins sit and what happens to them if the exchange fails, quoted rather than characterised.
In order to more securely and effectively custody Digital Assets, we may use shared blockchain addresses, that we control, to hold Digital Assets on your behalf and to hold on our behalf. We maintain separate ledgers for your account and our accounts.kraken.com
None of the Digital Assets in your account or any other customer account are our property, are loaned to us, or are subject to the claims of our creditors, and we do not represent or treat Digital Assets in your account, or in any other customer’s account, as our property. However, a court may disagree with our treatment of your Digital Assets and subject them to claims of our creditors.kraken.com
8. Freezing your account
1 clauses, quoted in the order they appear in the document. Read the last one first: it is the ground that swallows the others.
We can, at any time and without liability or prior notice to you: modify or discontinue our services or Platforms (or any parts of them), suspend, restrict, or terminate your access to our services or Platforms, suspend, restrict, or delete your account, any information related to your account, or any content you post to the services or Platforms, or reject any Deposit, Withdrawal, Trade, or other transaction or use of the service.kraken.com
9. Suspending withdrawals
We may, in our discretion, determine that it is necessary or appropriate to suspend your ability to make Withdrawals or Redemptions. We reserve the right to suspend your ability to make Withdrawals or Redemptions altogether for an indeterminate amount of time to ensure, as determined in our sole discretion, compliance with these terms or any legal, regulatory, or administrative obligation or guidance.kraken.com
10. Sending funds to a casino from Kraken
Kraken's terms restrict gambling only where it is unlawful, unregulated or illegal. Whether a deposit to a given casino breaches them depends on that casino's licence and on where you are.
use Our Content to engage in, pay for, or support any illegal, fraudulent, deceptive, or manipulative conduct, including illegal gambling activities, money-laundering, or terrorist activities,kraken.com
The only mention of gambling in the Global Terms is this restriction, which applies to "illegal gambling activities" and is framed around use of Kraken's content. A separate MoneyGram payout annex prohibits "gambling where prohibited". Lawful gambling is not addressed.
11. Which networks Kraken withdraws USDT on
19 USDT networks listed with withdrawals enabled on 2026-09-28, including Ethereum, Tron, Solana, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Avalanche, TON.
Read from Kraken's own withdrawal fees and minimums table, rows for Tether USD. Kraken lists no BNB Smart Chain row for USDT. Source. Which DEXes operate on each of those chains is in the DEX register.
12. Amendment, liquidation, arbitration and governing law
The clauses that decide what the contract can become, what can be done to an open position, and where a dispute would be heard.
These Terms may change at any time and without notice, including updates to (1) reflect changes to our services and Platforms or how we do business; (2) reflect the addition of new services, features, technologies, or offers; (3) address legal, regulatory, or security developments; or (4) prevent harm to our services and Platforms or to those using our services and Platforms. These Terms can only be modified in writing, and any change will be effective as of the Last Updated date set forth above. You should frequently check these Terms for updates. If you continue to access or use our Platforms or services, after we change these Terms, you agree to all our changes.kraken.com
You and Kraken agree to arbitrate any dispute arising from these Terms or your use of the services, except for disputes in which either party seeks equitable and other relief for the alleged unlawful use of copyrights, trademarks, trade names, logos, trade secrets or patents. ARBITRATION PREVENTS YOU FROM SUING IN COURT OR FROM HAVING A JURY TRIAL.kraken.com
13. Public record
No incident is recorded for Kraken. That is not a clean bill of health. It means no primary source, meaning a regulator action, a court filing or a company post-mortem, was retrieved within this collection. Absence of a record here is the absence of a search result.
14. Who should avoid Kraken
Anyone outside the European Economic Area who is relying on the authorisation they can see. The confirmed authorisation is held by Payward Europe Solutions Limited and covers that company's clients. A user elsewhere is contracting with a different entity under different terms.
Related entries
Or read the whole exchange register, the same method applied to wallets and to crypto casinos, the clause library at clause watch, or how this register works.