Latvian Casinos Online

According to the Gambling and Lotteries Law adopted in 2005, all online gambling activities are considered to be legal in Latvia. This was a huge breakthrough for the national gambling industry, as the Latvians got an opportunity to play with Latvian language absolutely legally. However, the new changes didn’t exceed all the expectations.

Only those casino operators who received an online casino Latvian license were allowed to offer their services to Latvian casino players. Foreign online casinos that accept Latvian players turned out to offer more opportunities and gambling options than those licensed by the Lotteries and Gambling Supervision Inspection of Latvia. That’s why many Latvian gamblers preferred playing in international betting sites accepting Latvian players rather than in licensed gambling venues.

The things changed at the beginning of 2019 when the Latvian government amended the country’s gambling laws. Now, both local players and unauthorized gambling websites are being targeted, which makes online gambling for Latvian players more limiting. Financial institutions now should block the payments made by Latvian players to foreign gambling sites, and the Internet service providers should provide the government with the names of Latvian punters who break the new rules. All in all, you are recommended to play in an online casino with Latvian language that holds a valid Latvian license.

Latvian-speaking online casinos can be found in several countries only, as the Latvian language is not widely used. Latvian is the Eastern Baltic language that is used mainly in the Baltic countries. It is the official lingua franca of Latvia and one of the official languages of the European Union. No wonder most Latvian speakers come from Latvia. To be exact, there are around 1,3 million people who speak Latvian as the first language in Latvia, and around 150,000 Latvian native speakers are stretched across different parts of the globe.

Not so many people learn Latvian as the second language, so overall, there are approximately 2 million Latvian speakers in the world. Small Latvian communities can be found in Estonia, Lithuania, Sweden, , Belarus, Ukraine, Australia, New Zeland, the UK, and the US.

As the research has shown, far not all Latvians can use English freely. That’s why it’s extremely important for online casinos accepting Latvian players to make the service available in the Latvian language. It will not only help the existing customers resolve their issues much faster but it will also attract many new Latvian punters to the casino.

If an online casino is targeting mainly Latvian gamblers, it will likely hire Latvian-speaking agents so that they can communicate with customers using their mother tongue. However, if the casino targets players worldwide, it won’t be that easy to hire Latvian speakers or polyglots. In this case, the casino can use some modern translation real-time tools that turn all the written text into the selected language.

The official currency of Latvia is EUR. The way of ing the Euro area was pretty difficult and full of obstacles for Latvia. However, the country managed to succeed and adopted the Euro in 2014. Despite the fact that it is more than 5 years since Latvia has moved to the Euro, the Bank of Latvia still keeps exchanging the old currency (Lats) at a rate of 0,7 Lats for 1 Euro. So, the adoption of new currency made it possible for Latvian punters to perform depositing and withdrawing with EUR at the best Latvian online casinos.

When it comes to payment options a Latvian gambler can use at a casinos that take WebMoney as the payment method. These are pretty popular in Latvia as well. Other available payment providers include Mobiamo, Maxima, Mint, Bank Transfer, and some others.