Maxim88: its licence claims, checked against the registers

How Maxim88 presents itself to Malaysia

Maxim88 is built for Malaysian players. Its Malaysian site defaults to ringgit, runs in English, Malay and Chinese, and lists Touch ’n Go, GrabPay, Boost, ShopeePay and DuitNow for payments. Its homepage text calls it “one licensed, secure platform built for Malaysian players”, and the title of its Chinese-language page describes it as legal online gambling in Malaysia^[1]. The terms list no restricted countries; clause 6.5 places the question of legality on the player^[7].

Under Malaysian law, no authority licenses online casinos. The Common Gaming Houses Act 1953 makes gaming in a common gaming house or in a public place an offence for the player, with a fine of up to RM5,000, six months in prison, or both^[8], and Kuching magistrates fined people for gambling on their phones in 2026^[6]. A foreign licence would not change that. Our guide to what Malaysian law says about online casinos sets out the offences and the cases.

What Maxim88 says about its licence

Maxim88 describes its licensing in three places.

The homepage. In a question-and-answer block titled “Is Maxim88 a Legal & Trusted Online Casino in Malaysia?”, the answer is: “Yes. Maxim88 is one of the safest and most trusted online casino Malaysia platforms, certified and licensed by international gambling authorities including BMM and iTech Labs.”^[1] BMM Testlabs and iTech Labs test games and random number generators. A test certificate shows that games were tested; it is not a gambling licence.

The landing page. The region-selection page that maxim88.com leads to says Maxim88 “is fully licensed and regulated by PAGCOR and Curacao Gaming”. Its Curaçao and PAGCOR badges are images without links, and no company or number is given^[1].

The site’s language files. The text files the Malaysian site loads describe Maxim88 as “a Registered Trade Mark, brand and registered business” at an address in Sliema, Malta, “Regulated & Licensed by the Government of Curacao” under “the Master License of Gaming Services Provider, N.V. #365/JAZ”^[1]. When we loaded the Malaysian site on 28 October 2026, on a desktop screen and on a phone-sized screen, this statement did not appear in the footer, which showed certification, security and payment logos^[1].

What the registers show

Maxim88 names no company and no licence number of its own, so we searched for the brand, its domains and the master licence it cites^[9]:

• Curaçao. The Curaçao Gaming Authority’s online gaming licence registry of 20 October 2026, its enforcement register and its certificate-holders list contain no entry for Maxim88, for Gaming Services Provider N.V. or for “365/JAZ”^[2][10].
• The Philippines. None of the nine PAGCOR lists of licensees, gaming system administrators, brands and domains, current to 20 October 2026, mentions Maxim88. A control search for another brand found it on three lists^[3].
• Anjouan. Maxim88 does not claim an Anjouan licence, and its name does not appear among the 1,258 entries on the Anjouan register^[4].
• Great Britain. The Gambling Commission’s business, trading-name and domain registers have no Maxim88 entry^[11].

We could not search the Malta Gaming Authority’s checker, which blocked our requests. Maxim88 does not claim a Malta licence but gives a Malta address, so we record that check as incomplete. The master licence it cites, 365/JAZ, expired on 18 August 2024^[12], which may explain its absence from the current registers; BK8’s FAQ cites the same master licence^[13]. PAGCOR’s October 2024 list of websites it has reported names “maxim88” and “maxim88malaysia.com”^[14]. Our guide to Curaçao master licences and why they ended explains the change, and our guide to checking an offshore licence claim explains why a claim needs a company and a number to be verified.

The licence link in the site settings

The Malaysian site’s public settings file contains a “Curaçao licence” link for every currency, pointing to an address on license-gamingcuracao.com^[1]. The .com registry returns “No match” for that domain, and public DNS returns no address for it^[5]. The Curaçao Gaming Authority’s own certificate checker is at cert.cga.cw^[15].

No visible icon on the Malaysian site used this link when we loaded it. A Curaçao licensee’s seal normally links to the regulator’s validator. The same domain appears in the settings of the 96M site, which uses the same licence link.

Payments, withdrawals and identity checks

The terms set these rules for withdrawals^[7]:

• winnings are paid “upon provision of a copy of valid photographic identification and/or credit/debit card” (clause 10.1);
• funds will not be released “under any circumstances” unless the full deposit has been played through (clause 10.2);
• the company may charge “reasonable cost” for deposits and withdrawals, and bank charges fall on the player (clauses 10.5 and 10.6);
• the company may void winnings and freeze balances, for example for multiple accounts or a name mismatch (clause 14.1).

The site’s settings show an identity-verification service switched on^[1]. The VIP table sets daily withdrawal limits by tier, from MYR 80,000 a day at the entry “Classic” tier to unlimited at the top tier^[16]. We could not find the minimum withdrawal or the limits for members outside the VIP scheme, because the FAQ pages that would hold them returned errors. The terms refer to “The Company” without naming it^[7].

The welcome offers

Maxim88 lists several new-member offers. The terms quoted here are its own^[17]:

The welcome terms do not say whether the turnover applies to the bonus alone or to the deposit plus the bonus. On the 288% offer, a MYR 100 deposit earns the maximum MYR 288 bonus. At 28 times the bonus alone, that is MYR 8,064 of bets; at 28 times the deposit plus bonus, it is MYR 10,864. These are our calculations from the stated figures, as Maxim88 gives no worked example. The other brands we checked that state a basis use deposit plus bonus.

The homepage mentions “a 288% welcome bonus up to RM288 plus 188 free spins”^[1]. In the terms these are separate offers, and the 288% bonus is open to members who “haven’t joined any of the Maxim88 promotions”^[17]. Neither offer states a maximum bet or a maximum cashout. The general terms allow the company to cap winnings from no-deposit bonuses and free spins at USD 100 (clause 20.1)^[7].

Reviews and the public record

Maxim88’s main domain has no Trustpilot profile. A profile for one of its mirror domains, claimed by the company in January 2025, had 18 reviews and a TrustScore of 2.7 when we read it; the reviews mention withdrawals, identity checks and account suspensions, and the company replied to some of them^[18]. A review profile is not a representative sample, and we have not checked any individual review.

Maxim88’s sponsorship page names the former England footballer Michael Owen as its brand ambassador for 2022/23^[1]. Its site files also describe John Terry as a former ambassador, which we could not confirm. We found no enforcement action by a regulator or the Malaysian authorities that names Maxim88.

Limits and exclusion

The Malaysian site’s responsible-gaming text says customer service staff are trained in problem gambling and asks players to contact them^[1]. The landing page says the system “restricts deposits, play timings, and betting limits” in case of overuse^[1]. We did not find a public page describing a deposit limit, a cooling-off period or self-exclusion; tools may exist inside the account area, which we did not open.

If you want to stop, you do not need the operator’s help. Our guide to free gambling help in Malaysia covers practical steps and people who will talk to you, including Befrienders KL on 03-7627 2929, 24 hours a day^[19].

What this check shows

Maxim88 states that it is licensed by Curaçao and PAGCOR and certified by BMM and iTech Labs. The two testing labs certify games rather than license casinos. We found no entry for Maxim88, or for the master licence its site files cite, on the Curaçao or PAGCOR registers, the site names no company, and its licence link points to an unregistered domain^[1][2][3][5]. Its result is therefore “claimed but not found”.

For a reader in Malaysia, online gambling carries the legal exposure described above, and without a licence on record there is no regulator to turn to in a dispute.