According to H2GC calculations, the shadow economy will cause the Latvian state budget to receive about 90 million euros in unpaid taxes from this segment in the five years until 2030.
This is reported by Delfi.lv with reference to LV Portāls.
Since April 1, the Inspectorate for Supervision of Lotteries and Gambling joined the State Revenue Service (VID), which has not yet calculated the share of shadow economy in the gambling industry, but promises to pay attention to it.
The tax rate ongambling in 2026 increased from 10% to 15%
“The calculation of the shadow economy includes under-recovered taxes,” said Agnese Rudzite, director of VID’s non-financial sector supervision directorate. – The tax rate on gambling revenues has increased from 10% to 15% in 2026. As it is increasing, the total amount of taxes under-received is also increasing”.
As H2GC notes, this is mainly due to the proliferation of cryptocasinos and the growing popularity of so-called skin betting – gambling games where players can bet using virtual items from video games (skins). In 2025, these sites will account for almost 25% of all web traffic in the unlicensed market.
H2GC stated that more than 1,000 illegal gambling sites are available in Latvia, of which about 900 are in English, more than 250 in Russian and 24 in Latvian. In addition, many illegal operators use mirror sites, which are constantly changing, so it is extremely difficult to measure activity on them.
