Saturday, July 4, 2020

History of Gambling in Lithuania







The History of Gambling


Lithuania is located in Northern Europe and has an estimated population of 3 million people. The country has a good amount of gambling locations with just over 100 venues across the country. Approximately 10 of these locations offer traditional table games, just under 10 offer roulette, slots, and multi player poker, and the rest tend to be slot halls with only slot machines on offer.

We don’t know much about the ancient history of the Lithuanian gambling market but the important landmarks of the modern history are well-known. When the country became a part of the Soviet Union in the 1940s, all kinds of gambling became strictly forbidden. As the Soviet government considered gambling to be the part of the hated capitalism, it was pretty serious about this prohibition.

Gambling in Lithuania has rather a short history. When Lithuania was part of USSR gambling virtually did not exist there. The changes started to appear little by little after Lithuania regained independence in 1990.

The situation changed in the 1990s when Lithuania became an independent country and started to follow the rules of the free market. No gambling laws were issued at that time so gambling wasn’t legally approved yet but it wasn’t prohibited either and the first casinos started to appear all over the country. The activity of the casinos of that times was completely unregulated: they were not paying any taxes to the government and even the legal gambling age was not determined. Obviously, the safety of some casinos was quite doubtful and they could do more harm than the modern online casinos accepting Lithuania players.

Casinos and little amusement arcades. In 2001 gambling was regulated and gambling operator could start to create legal casino on Lithuania’s territory. Currently there are 17 licensed casinos and they belong to 4 companies. The biggest of them is estonian group Olympic Casinos, which opened its first casino in Lithuania 2004 in Kaunas. Due to the influence of the Catholic Church, the government approved the first Gaming Act in 2001 to create the regulated gambling market in Lithuania. Since then, all the brick-and-mortar casinos have to obtain licenses and pay taxes to the country’s budget. At the same time, the top online casinos for Lithuanian players remained unregulated which basically meant that anyone could play any games both in the Lithuania based online casinos and those located outside the country. Thus, online gambling has become very popular among the population and many people are now betting in the best online casinos for Lithuanians.


The first gambling laws came into Lithuania in 2001. Before this, while betting did take place in the country it was done so illegally and on a very small scale. The majority of illegal betting was based around football matches, which remains a the most popular market today. After 2001 legal betting shops began to appear, with TopSport being the first company to open a shop in 2002 in Kanus The other three operators in the country are Omnibet, Orakulus and Baltic Bet.

The history of online gambling in Lithuania has a bit of a controversy. Right now, they have a single state-sponsored company that handles most online gambling called Olifeia. Sports betting is the only type of gambling not handled by this company, and it's held by three others that have government backing as well. This results in a virtual monopoly inside of their borders that they've tried to protect unsuccessfully.

The Future of Gambling in Lithuania


Lithuania was one of the last countries in the EU to regulate its gambling market and oblige the best online casinos for Lithuanian players to obtain licenses and satisfy all the safety and commercial requirements. Even though the market regulation could cause some problems for the Lithuania online casino sites, the players have got the safe and regulated gambling environment where they can make their bets in the top 10 Lithuanian online casinos and get the real winnings.

You are only steps away from playing real money casino games from Lithuania. Out top Lithuanian casinos will welcome you with open arms as long as you get to the sites. If you are having trouble getting to the casinos in question, 파워볼게임 consider using a VPN to avoid being blocked from visiting the sites you want.

The fate of online sports betting, and other gambling, is currently in the hands of the European Commission. While Europe tends to prefer open markets they have been known to support countries ISP blocks on sites if it has been felt to benefit the market overall and protect the citizens.

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