Kahnawake Client Provider Authorization (CPA), Explained

A Kahnawake Client Provider Authorization (CPA) is the Kahnawà:ke Gaming Commission’s permit for businesses that offer interactive gaming to players, such as casino, poker or sportsbook, from the hosting facility in Kahnawà:ke. The Commission sets no cap on how many it issues, and every CPA holder must be hosted at Mohawk Internet Technologies.

That is the regulator’s own description, and it is shorter than most of the pages that rank for this question. This desk read the Commission’s permit-holders page, its About page, its August 13, 2026 fee notice and two 2026 termination notices on September 23, 2026. What follows is built from those five pages, with vendor summaries quoted only where they differ from them.

What is a Kahnawake client provider authorization?

The Kahnawà:ke Gaming Commission (KGC) regulates gaming within and from the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawà:ke, just outside Montréal. Its Regulations concerning Interactive Gaming were enacted on July 8, 1999. Under them, the CPA is the permit a gaming business actually operates on.

The Commission’s permit-holders page defines it in three sentences. A CPA is issued to approved entities that want to provide interactive gaming services from the hosting facility in Kahnawà:ke. There is no limit on the number the Commission may issue. The holder must be hosted at the facility that holds the Interactive Gaming Licence, and it may offer any type of interactive gaming, with “casino, poker and/or sportsbook” given as examples.

Read as an auditor reads a contract, that definition carries three conditions and one open door:

• Approval. The entity has to be approved. The page does not list the approval criteria; those sit in the Regulations and the application forms, which this desk did not read for this piece.
• Location of the servers. The gaming service is provided from the hosting facility in Kahnawà:ke. The permit is tied to a building before it is tied to a market.
• A named landlord. The holder must be hosted by whoever holds the Interactive Gaming Licence. Since 1999 that has been one company.
• Scope. “Any type of interactive gaming” is broad. The examples are examples, not a closed list, and they do not include anything about the currency a player deposits in.

What the definition does not contain is as useful as what it does. It says nothing about which countries a CPA holder may accept players from, and nothing about tax. Wizards’ guide fills both gaps, with a 0% tax line and a note that the US market is excluded. The Commission’s definition, at least, does not.

Where does the CPA sit among the Commission’s permits?

The permit-holders page opens: “Presently, the Commission issues four types of licenses.” It then defines five. That is the page’s own arithmetic, and this desk reports it rather than corrects it. It also calls the personal permit a Key Person Licence, while the August 2026 fee notice calls the same thing a Key Person Permit. Both names are the Commission’s.

The table sorts the permits by who faces the player. The CPA is the permit written for offering interactive gaming to players. The CSPA is expressly barred from doing so. The IGL is a hosting permit. The KPL is a permit on a person. The LDSA covers a studio inside the territory.

That distinction matters because “Kahnawake licence” is used loosely. When a casino’s footer says it is licensed in Kahnawà:ke, the permit on this list written for an online casino offering games to players is a CPA. A supplier’s CSPA does not cover the casino that runs its games, a point this site made about what a supplier licence proves in another jurisdiction.

Why must a CPA holder be hosted at Mohawk Internet Technologies?

Because the Commission says so, in two places. The permit-holders page ties the CPA to the IGL holder’s facility. The Commission’s About page, read on September 23, 2026, states the rule more broadly: online gaming operators licensed by the Commission must be hosted at Mohawk Internet Technologies, a data centre within the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawà:ke, managed by Continent 8 Technologies.

Three entities sit in that sentence, and they are easy to blur:

• Mohawk Internet Technologies is the holder of the sole IGL, per the permit-holders page, and has been since 1999.
• Continent 8 Technologies manages the data centre, per the About page.
• The Commission licenses and regulates. It does not host. Its About page says its primary function is protecting players who use its permit holders’ games.

The hosting condition is the feature that makes Kahnawà:ke different from licensing regimes that care about where a company is incorporated rather than where its servers are. A CPA is, first, a statement about a rack in a specific building.

What the hosting condition proves is narrower than it sounds. It proves the Commission requires the gaming service to run from that facility. It does not prove that a given website’s traffic is served from there today; this desk has no way to check that, and did not try.

Kahnawake CPA vs IGL: what is the difference?

The IGL and the CPA are not alternatives. An operator does not pick one. The IGL is issued to a hosting facility, only one may exist at any given time, and Mohawk Internet Technologies has held it since 1999. The CPA is issued to the business that offers games, and the Commission sets no cap on how many there are.

The relationship is closer to landlord and tenant than to two grades of the same licence. Every CPA holder is, by the Commission’s definition, hosted at the IGL holder. A company asking whether it should apply for an IGL is asking the wrong question: the page leaves room for one IGL, and it is taken.

The Key Person Licence is the third piece. The Commission says it is issued to at least one person who performs managerial or operational functions for the entity holding a CPA or CSPA, and that it treats the information in KPLs as confidential. Wizards, a development studio, goes further and says the KGC requires a KPL for every individual performing those functions. That may describe practice; it is not what the permit-holders page says, and “at least one person” is the regulator’s phrase.

How much does a Kahnawake CPA cost?

Per the Commission’s Increase of Fees notice of August 13, 2026, re-read on September 23, 2026, a CPA application costs USD 35,000 inclusive of the first-year annual fee, and the annual fee is USD 20,000. From January 1, 2027 a complete application costs USD 40,000, and the five-year renewal moves from USD 5,000, which excluded due diligence and the annual fee, to USD 40,000 including the annual fee. The full current-versus-2027 table, Key Person Permit rows included, is in this site’s Kahnawake licence cost breakdown.

Two vendor guides that rank for this query print a different current figure. SOFTSWISS’s guide, marked “Updated: June 1, 2026”, says the CPA application fee is USD 40,000. Wizards’ guide, published 29 May 2026, cites a “$40,000 application”. Both pages pre-date the August 13 notice, so neither can be faulted for missing it. But per the regulator’s notice, USD 40,000 is the fee for complete applications submitted from January 1, 2027. The fee in force as of this writing is USD 35,000.

The notice adds that CPA fees have changed only twice since they were introduced, most recently in 2016, and that complete applications submitted before January 1, 2027 are assessed under the schedule in force at submission, even if they are finalised later. It is a price list. It says nothing about whether a CPA holder is well run.

Is a Kahnawake CPA valid for crypto casinos?

The Commission’s pages read for this piece do not answer the question either way, and that is the honest answer.

The CPA definition allows “any type of interactive gaming” and gives casino, poker and sportsbook as examples. A text search of the full permit-holders page on September 23, 2026 found no occurrence of “crypto” or “Bitcoin”. The definition neither lists crypto gambling nor excludes it.

Wizards’ guide is more definite: it says the CPA covers casino, sports betting, poker, lotteries, esports and cryptocurrency gambling under a single permit. That is the studio’s statement. This desk could not match the crypto part of it to any Commission page it read, which is not the same as showing it is wrong.

Two further points hold whatever the scope question turns out to be. A CPA is a permit from Kahnawà:ke; whether a crypto casino may lawfully accept a player is decided by the player’s jurisdiction, not by the permit. And a permit that allows crypto deposits would say nothing about how an operator custodies them, which is a separate question from the permit altogether.

How does a Kahnawake CPA end?

The clearest evidence of how a CPA ends is the Commission’s own advisory notices. Two were published in June and July 2026, and both describe the same route: voluntary termination.

• Firo Lod N.V. The notice dated June 26, 2026 says the Commission accepted Firo Lod’s voluntary termination request and that its CPA was terminated effective June 26, 2026.
• Cartwheel B.V. The notice dated July 2, 2026 says the CPA previously held by Cartwheel was terminated effective July 1, 2026, on a voluntary request the Commission accepted.

Both notices use the same two sentences that matter. The Commission confirms the company “departs in good standing”. And the Commission will not receive or consider complaints concerning the company that are submitted after the effective date.

The first sentence is a clean exit, and it is worth reading as the regulator intends it: no sanction is implied. The second sentence is the one players should notice. In both notices, once the CPA ended, the Commission’s complaint route for that operator closed on a stated date. On the notices’ wording, a complaint submitted after the effective date will not be considered, and the notice can post-date that cut-off: Cartwheel’s is dated July 2, a day after its termination took effect.

Voluntary termination is not the only way a permit can end under most regimes. The Commission’s Regulations set out the conditions for its permits, but this desk did not read the Regulations for this piece, and so it does not describe suspension or revocation here. The two notices above are the only CPA endings this piece relies on.

How do you check whether a casino holds a Kahnawake CPA?

The Commission publishes a list of interactive permit holders on its permit-holders page. The page says the operators and URLs listed “have been certified” by the Commission, that not all URLs are accessible in all jurisdictions, and that the list was “Updated September 28, 2023”. The two CSPA holders named above it are VSTechnology Limited and Relax Gaming International Limited.

A check that holds up under an auditor’s reading looks like this:

1. Match the exact domain. Look for the site’s own URL in the list, not only the company name. The list pairs operator entities with URLs, and one entity can run many sites.
2. Read the date. The stamp says September 28, 2023. An entry is evidence of what the Commission recorded then; the stamp does not claim anything about today.
3. Check the news archive. Terminations are announced as advisory notices. A domain on the list whose operator has since given up its CPA would show up there, not on a list stamped 2023.
4. Ignore the footer. A seal or a sentence in a casino’s footer is the casino’s claim. The list is the Commission’s.

One detail from this desk’s read shows why step 3 matters. A text search of the full permit-holders page on September 23, 2026 found neither “Cartwheel” nor “Firo”. This desk cannot say whether either firm ever appeared on the list under those names, or under a brand or a subsidiary, so the absence proves nothing about either company. It does show that the list alone would not have told a reader that either CPA had ended.

The counts vendors give should be read against the same list. SOFTSWISS’s guide says the KGC covers “one IGL, three CSPAs” and more than 50 operators. The dated list this desk read names two CSPA holders. Both can be true at different times, which is the whole problem with a list stamped 2023.

What does a Kahnawake CPA prove, and what does it not?

A current CPA proves that the Commission approved an entity to offer interactive gaming from the Kahnawà:ke hosting facility, and that the entity was expected to run its service from Mohawk Internet Technologies. It places the operator within reach of complaints to a regulator whose stated primary function is player protection, until the effective date on which the permit ends.

It does not prove that a given website is covered unless the domain itself is listed. It does not prove current status from a list dated 2023. It does not prove anything about a player’s own jurisdiction, and it does not prove fair games or sound custody of deposits. Those are separate questions, and this site has put them to other regimes, from the Tobique Gaming Commission licence to the Tobique vs Kahnawake comparison.

Frequently asked questions

What is a Client Provider Authorization?

It is the Kahnawà:ke Gaming Commission’s permit for entities that want to provide interactive gaming services from the hosting facility in Kahnawà:ke. The Commission’s permit-holders page says there is no limit on how many it issues, that the holder must be hosted at the facility holding the Interactive Gaming Licence, and that it may offer any type of interactive gaming, giving casino, poker and sportsbook as examples.

How much does a Kahnawake CPA cost?

Per the Commission’s notice of August 13, 2026, a CPA application costs USD 35,000 inclusive of the first-year annual fee, and the annual fee is USD 20,000. Complete applications submitted on or after January 1, 2027 pay USD 40,000, and the five-year renewal rises from USD 5,000 to USD 40,000 including the annual fee. Applications complete before that date keep the old schedule.

What is the difference between a Kahnawake IGL and a CPA?

The Interactive Gaming Licence goes to the hosting facility, and only one may exist at a time; Mohawk Internet Technologies has held it since 1999. The CPA goes to the gaming business that offers games to players, and the Commission issues as many as it approves. An operator does not choose between them: it needs a CPA, and the CPA requires hosting at the IGL holder.

Is a Kahnawake licence valid for crypto casinos?

The Commission’s own wording does not settle it. Its CPA definition, read on September 23, 2026, allows any type of interactive gaming and names casino, poker and sportsbook; the permit-holders page does not contain the word cryptocurrency. Wizards, a development studio, says the CPA covers crypto gambling. That is the studio’s reading, and it says nothing about where a crypto casino may lawfully take players.

How do I check if a casino holds a Kahnawake licence?

Look up the exact domain on the list of interactive permit holders on the Commission’s permit-holders page, then search the Commission’s news archive for any termination notice naming the operator. The list is stamped Updated September 28, 2023, so an entry is a dated record, not proof of today’s status. A seal in a casino’s footer is not a check of either.

A permit describes a regulator’s paperwork, not a player’s odds. Losses at any casino, permitted or not, are real money gone; crypto balances can shrink before a withdrawal arrives; and nothing on this desk is financial advice. 18+.