The Gulf's First Legal Online Baccarat: How the UAE Went From Lottery to Live Tables in Thirteen Months

In one year the UAE licensed its first live-casino studio (Live88) and its first online casino (Play971). Baccarat dealt from an Abu Dhabi studio is now legal to play in the Emirates.

Thirteen months separate the United Arab Emirates' first regulated online wager — a lottery ticket in November 2024 — from its first legal online baccarat hand. The path ran through two licensing decisions by the General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority (GCGRA), the federal regulator established in 2023 that holds sole authority over commercial gaming across all seven Emirates.

October 2025: A Studio Before an Operator

In early October 2025 the GCGRA granted gaming-related vendor licences to two Yolo Group companies: Hub88, an aggregator, and Live Online Gaming Services, the entity behind the Live88 live-dealer studio and the OneTouch game maker. Live88 became the first licensed online live-casino studio in the country and moved into a physical studio in Abu Dhabi. Yolo Group founder Tim Heath called the licences "more than a regulatory achievement, it is a statement of intent" (Yolo Group, October 8, 2025; SBC News, October 8, 2025).

November 2025: Play971 Goes Live

On November 28, 2025 the regulator added Coin Technology Projects LLC to its internet-gaming and sports-wagering licensee list, and its brand, Play971, went live within days. Coin Technology Projects shares an address with The Game LLC, the operator of the UAE Lottery. The launch was deliberately narrow: the site was available in Abu Dhabi and Ras Al Khaimah but not Dubai, and play requires Emirates ID verification and physical presence in the country (iGaming Business, November 28, 2025).

Play971's launch statement says its live dealer products stream from a GCGRA-licensed studio in Abu Dhabi, and the regulator's own definition of internet gaming expressly includes baccarat alongside blackjack, roulette and poker (iGaming Expert, June 5, 2026). Its casino catalogue relies primarily on OneTouch for RNG games and Live88 for live tables.

The Same Tables, Now Regulated

For baccarat players, the significance is precise. Live88 and OneTouch are the two suppliers behind the baccarat lobbies at Bitcasino.io, Sportsbet.io and LiveCasino.io — the Yolo Group brands that set the benchmark for online baccarat on this site. Residents of the UAE can now play a regulated version of those same products, dealt locally, ahead of the planned 2027 opening of Wynn Al Marjan Island, the country's first land-based casino.

A note on what is not yet known: Play971's lobby cannot be viewed from outside the UAE, so table counts, minimums and promotional terms reported by third-party sites are unverified, and whether additional studios such as Evolution supply the site remained unconfirmed at the time of writing.