Yggdrasil Casinos

Is Yggdrasil safe to play?

Yggdrasil builds and licenses the games; it is not the casino you deposit at. It holds its own UK Gambling Commission software licence, in its own name through its Swedish operating company, rather than reaching British players under an owner’s licence. That licence covers how the games are built and tested: independent labs certify the random number generator, so the casino cannot influence the result, and each game’s return is fixed in its own paytable, the same at every casino that offers it. Your deposits and withdrawals are governed by the casino’s licence, not Yggdrasil’s, so choose the casino carefully; the list above only shows casinos we have reviewed.

Yggdrasil’s own UK licence

The licence below is Yggdrasil’s own, held through its Swedish operating entity. It is on the public register for you to check.

There is one more point worth adding, in fairness. Yggdrasil has no UK enforcement record, but in 2024 Sweden’s gambling regulator fined it 300,000 kronor, about 30,000 euros, for supplying its software to an operator that was not licensed there. Yggdrasil put it down to a reseller breaking its contract and said it fixed the issue. It is a business-to-business supply-chain matter in another country, not a question about whether the games are fair or about the safety of a UK deposit, but hiding it would be less than honest.

The company behind the games

Yggdrasil was started in 2013 by Fredrik Elmqvist, who had been a senior executive at NetEnt before he pitched the idea at a trade show, though the shorthand that calls him a former NetEnt chief executive overstates the role. The studio is based in Malta with Swedish roots. It has never been an independent company for long: the Swedish Cherry group took majority control the year it was founded, and when the private equity firm Bridgepoint bought Cherry and took it private in 2018 and 2019, Yggdrasil passed into Bridgepoint’s hands along with it, where it remains. The stretch since has been bumpy, with three chief executives between 2022 and 2023 and a write-down at the parent, but the studio has kept shipping games throughout. For a blackjack player, the useful fact is the one already covered: this is a slots studio that also happens to make a few software blackjack tables.

• 2013

  Founded by Fredrik Elmqvist; the Swedish Cherry group becomes its majority owner the same year.

• 2018

  Launches Sonya Blackjack, its first table game, on the REDUX platform.

• 2019

  A Bridgepoint-led buyout takes parent Cherry private, so Yggdrasil comes under Bridgepoint’s ownership through Cherry.

• 2020

  Opens up its game mechanics to third-party studios through its YG Masters partner programme and GATI toolkit.