Latvia

About the State Revenue Service (SRS) — Latvia’s Gambling Regulator

Latvia’s gambling license is issued by the State Revenue Service (SRS), which absorbed the former Lotteries and Gambling Supervisory Inspection (IAUI) on 1 April 2026 under the Law on Gambling and Lotteries. The SRS regulates casinos, betting, bingo, and lotteries with €200,000 interactive licence duties and a 15% GGR tax rate effective 2026.

Under our Tier-2 licensing framework, we classify Latvia as a mid-tier EU regulator: active enforcement and an EEA-aligned regulatory framework, but with regulator-mediated dispute resolution rather than the independent binding ADR found in UKGC or MGA tier-one structures.

The pre-April 2026 IAUI was established in 1995 as a standalone supervisory authority under the Ministry of Finance, employing approximately 21 staff under Director Signe Birne across four functional units (Legal & Licensing, Control, Deputy, Financial Division). Its dissolution makes Latvia the first EU member state to integrate a gambling regulator into its tax authority.

Post-April 2026, all gambling supervision sits within the SRS Non-Financial Sector Supervision Department. Two new units handle the workload — one for licensing, compliance monitoring, and legal support; another for remote and on-site inspections. All 21 IAUI staff transferred to SRS, and operator reporting now flows through VID’s Electronic Declaration System (EDS).

How Latvian Licensing Works

The Law on Gambling and Lotteries, adopted in 2006, sets the framework for four licence categories:

• Games of chance — casinos, slot halls, bingo (land-based + online)
• Lotteries — typically state-monopoly oriented
• Totalisators and betting — sports betting + horse race betting (fixed-odds + pari-mutuel)
• Skill games — separate category

Operators must register as a joint-stock company in Latvia or another EEA member state, post a paid-up share capital of approximately €1.4 million through a Latvian bank account, and limit non-EEA foreign shareholders to 49%. Mandatory technical compliance includes RNG certification by eCOGRA, iTech Labs, or GLI, RTP minimum 92% (dynamic RTP prohibited), 256-bit SSL encryption, and server location within the EEA or a Latvian-approved jurisdiction.

The €200,000 interactive gambling licence duty remains unchanged through the 2026 reform. Tax rates rose on 1 January 2026: interactive gambling 12%→15% GGR, betting 15%→18% GGR, bingo 10%→12% GGR. Fixed annual charges on gaming machines and table games also climbed, projected to generate +€9.2 million in additional state revenue annually.

Foreign licences carry no weight in Latvia — operators must obtain a domestic SRS licence to serve Latvian residents, even when already licensed elsewhere in the EEA. The compact market currently holds approximately 12-15 licensed remote operators, smaller than Portugal’s SRIJ approach with 18 active concessions. Licences are issued for an unlimited period but require annual re-registration through SRS.

Player Protection Under Latvian Licensing

Latvia operates a centralised national self-exclusion register that blocks excluded players from ALL licensed gambling sites and land-based venues simultaneously. The register transferred from IAUI to SRS infrastructure on 1 April 2026 without interruption, and Ace Alliance confirms the move was paired with enhanced data security standards under VID’s existing systems.

Licensed operators must offer deposit limits, loss limits, session time limits, and self-exclusion or account closure on demand. All gambling advertising must include addiction risk warnings and the operator’s licence number, cannot target minors, and “flashy or overly conspicuous” venue facades are prohibited under amended regulations.

Technical safeguards include GDPR-compliant data handling, mandatory access controls and audit trails, and segregated player funds protecting deposits from operator financial difficulties. Servers must be hosted within the EEA or a Latvian-approved jurisdiction, and licensees undergo regular vulnerability assessments to maintain data integrity.

A proposed reform under discussion would raise the minimum gambling age from 18 to 21 for casino-style gambling (lottery age remains 18) and introduce mandatory personalised smart cards to access gambling venues — designed to track player activity and identify early signs of gambling addiction. The cards would integrate with the centralised self-exclusion register for cross-channel coverage.

Latvia vs Other Licenses

Against UKGC’s IBAS framework as the Tier-1 binding-ADR benchmark, Latvia routes complaints through the State Revenue Service as a supervisory mediator rather than an independent binding-decision body. The UK has segregated funds, GAMSTOP, statutory levy, and IBAS adjudication; Latvia has €200K licence duties, centralised self-exclusion, and SRS-mediated dispute resolution.

Compared to Estonia’s neighbouring EMTA as the closest Baltic peer, the 2026 reform paths diverge sharply: Estonia phases its gambling tax down from 5.5% to 4% by 2029 with mandatory HAMPI real-time integration, while Latvia raised interactive gambling tax from 12% to 15% and absorbed its entire regulator into the tax authority. Estonia operates ~41 licensed remote operators; Latvia maintains a compact ~12-15.

Versus Malta’s Player Hub mechanism as a Tier-1 EU peer with broader passporting and binding ADR, Latvia’s compact Baltic market trades scale and ADR depth for institutional novelty — its April 2026 IAUI dissolution is the first EU instance of a gambling regulator merging into the tax authority. Both regulators require EEA operator registration, but Latvia’s territorial-only licensing distinguishes it from Malta’s EU-wide passport reach.

How to Verify a Latvian Gambling License

Verification runs a three-step workflow:

• Check the operator footer for a Latvian gambling licence number
• Cross-reference the operator’s legal name in the SRS Non-Financial Sector Supervision register at vid.gov.lv (the legacy iaui.gov.lv address now redirects)
• Confirm both location-specific land-based licences (for retail venues) and the interactive gambling licence (€200,000 duty paid) for online operations

Red flags include missing licence numbers, operator legal names absent from the SRS register, and mismatches between advertised game categories and the operator’s actual licence scope. Latvia’s IP and DNS blocking of unlicensed operators has been active since the 2014 amendments, and the “tax-first” SRS integration is expected to increase audit frequency throughout 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

Final Take

Latvia’s SRS works best for players comfortable with a Baltic-EU compact regulated market, who value an actively-enforced framework with centralised self-exclusion, and who can tolerate the 2026 reform transition (institutional merger plus tax hikes) as a modernisation tradeoff rather than a destabiliser.

Consider an alternative jurisdiction if you need a binding ADR layer (look to UKGC IBAS or MGA Player Hub), if you prefer the broader operator variety of larger Tier-1 markets, or if you want stable tax framing — Latvia raised interactive gambling tax from 12% to 15% on 1 January 2026 with further annual fixed-charge adjustments expected.