Recently, Latvian gambling regulators have increased their enforcement of a 2006 gambling law and disabled access to 102 websites. Here is an article from PokerNews.com explaining the situation.
We have spoken with Latvian poker pro Arturs "IKSecret" Kurnajevs, the subject of an interview we conducted in July, to get a Latvian grinder's perspective on the situation.
Charles Hawk: Sorry to hear about the situation in Latvia with the new laws. Are you still able to play in any rooms? What are your plans for the future?
Arturs "IKSecret" Kurnajevs: I am still able to play on most poker rooms and it has not affected me too much. We still are allowed to play, but poker room home pages are blocked, so for new players it is a problem to register.
CH: So this is affecting only old players?
AK: Most poker rooms are working fine. We can play and there are no laws now forbidding it, but poker room web pages, where we can download clients, are blocked.
If Latvia will block me from playing, in the worst case scenario, I will move to Estonia or Portugal for some time.
CH: Are you worried at least in some way about your bankrolls in the poker rooms, that they could be taken away after some time without warning?
AK: No, I don't worry at all about it. It has nothing to do with government blocking access.
CH: What does the Latvian government hope to achieve? The country does not have too many people to be able to provide enough action for only Latvians.
AK: There are rumours that this has a lot to do with the local gamblig institution lobby in government, because new rules to get licences for gambling sites here are quite injudicious and irrational. I haven`t considered this question seriously yet, and this is only one version of what people are talking about here, not my official statement. We have to provide better rules for getting licences here as Estonian institutions did a few years ago.
CH: Could you tell me about the situation in Estonia? How is it better to what is in Latvia / what the Latvian government is aiming for?
AK: I am not aware of the whole sitaution in Estonia now, but they managed to regulate their market in ways that were not so harmful for poker players and sites. Their licensing policy was reasonable, but some of our rules for gamling and poker sites to get licenses are, as I said before, injudicious and irrational in my opinion.