THE HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INSPECTION

     The first games of chance in Latvia were organized and the gambling market began its rapid development in early nineties due to the regaining of independence. In the summer of 1991 the first casino was registered in Latvia. At that time also increased the amount of companies, who organized different kinds of lotteries in our country. But as at that moment there were no legislative acts that would regulate the organization procedure of lotteries and gambling and also because of the insufficient supervision and control of the lotteries and gambling market by the state, its development was spontaneous and not regulated. At this period of time many small companies were involved in the organization of lotteries and gambling, who could not always ensure the organization of these games at the necessary level. Therefore the gaming business was discredited and the player suffered, as well as the revenue in the state budget from lotteries and gambling was very small.

  Establishment, structure and functions of the Lotteries and Gambling Supervision Inspection

Lotteries and Gambling Supervision Inspection of the Republic of Latvia is implementing the government functions in arrangement of lotteries and gambling. The Inspection has commenced its activities on 1st January 1998.

            The Inspection is managed by the Director of Inspection, under the subordination there are the Assistant Director, Deputy Director, Control Department and Legal Department.

            Deputy Director of the Inspection is Director of the Control department.

Main functions of the Control Department are:

·       Control over compliance with laws and regulations governing lotteries and gambling, lotteries of goods and services within territory of  the Republic of Latvia;

·    Supervision and control over arrangement of lotteries, gambling, lotteries of goods and services, participation in lotteries;

·        Performance of supervision over casino encashment;

·       Aggregation and analysis of information concerning checks performed, results thereof, as well as violations of laws and regulations governing lotteries and gambling, lotteries of goods and services and reasons thereof.

            Legal Department comprises Licensing Division and Financial Analysis Division. Main functions of the Legal Department:.

·        Ensuring representation of the Inspection in legal proceedings;

·     Ensuring development and control over compliance with the state procurement contracts;

·     Drawing draft statutes and laws and regulations related to arrangement of lotteries and gambling and the Inspection activities, coordination of approvals thereof and compliance with the European Union Directives;

·       Review of the gambling rules;

·      Performance of supervision over registration, marking and inventory of gambling slot machines and equipment;

·    Analysis and handling of documents for the purpose of granting licenses to capital companies for arrangement of lotteries and gambling, as well as to organizers of lotteries of goods and services for granting the lottery confirmations or permissions.

·       Review of documents submitted by capital companies in order to receive license and provision of economic opinion thereto;

·       Aggregation and analysis of information concerning overall market of lotteries and gambling, as well as elaboration of forecasts as regards development of the market of lotteries and gambling;

·       Performance of marking of the gambling equipment, registration of gambling slot machines and equipment and delivery of marking signs;

·       Performance of comparing and verification of the amount of market of lotteries and gambling duty and tax being calculated and paid to the Public Treasury account, amounts of the stamp duty of marking sign calculated and accrued,

·       Elaboration of draft annual budgets, cost estimates, funding plans and budget performance reports of the Inspection;

·       Performance of inventory concerning quantity, type, numbers and series of mandatory documents registered for each capital company.

Principal tasks of the gambling supervising authority:

1)      to ensure gambling being safe for consumers (meeting general electric safety requirements and being safe from the point that technical equipment of slot machines, other lotteries and gambling devices and software providing for prize payment percent stipulated by the law);

2)      to ensure that organizers of lotteries and gambling comply with requirements prescribed by the law (they have sufficient financial resources, origin whereof can be established, proper reputation and they have been neither sentenced nor capacitated);

3)      to ensure control and supervision over lotteries and gambling in order to those being arranged only in compliance with requirements of laws and regulations of the Republic of Latvia;

4)     to ensure protection of consumer rights and to form contribution, to reduce eventual social risk related to gambling.

Functions of the Lotteries and Gambling Supervision Inspection

1. Issuing of licenses for gambling arrangements; issuing license to open casino, gambling hall, bingo hall, totalizator or venues for accepting betting stakes, and license to arrange national or local scale numerical lotteries, moment lotteries and single occasion lotteries of local scale.

2. For taking appropriate and reasoned decision on granting license or refusal to grant license, performs deeper analysis of financial indicators of commercial activities of the company and legal assessment of documents submitted, by determination of compliance thereof with law requirements and taking into account indications of suspicious or strange transactions stipulated by the law „On Prevention of Money-Laundering and Terrorist Financing”.

3. Performing delivery of accounting reports for the gambling slot machine counters for each gambling slot machine, as well as management of register thereof.

4. Administration of register for casino visitors, upon receiving information from capital companies, as well as in case of requests giving the information needed to law-enforcement bodies.

5. Review, evaluation and consequently to positive evaluation, approval of the lottery plan and rules for each game of chance.

6. Receiving information from the State Police Information centre and approval of the casino, gaming hall or bingo hall manager (administrator).

7. Receiving and summarizing information from companies regarding location of gambling slot machines and forming database. Regularly operational information is delivered by the Inspection to the State Revenue Service concerning installation and dismantling of each gambling slot machine or device, corporate entities, arranging gambling and concerning corporate or natural entities in premises whereof gambling slot machine or device is installed or dismantled.

8. Review, evaluation and carrying out delivery of permissions for lotteries of goods and services or lottery confirmations, review, evaluation and consequently to positive evaluation approval of rules for each lottery, as well as performance of summarization of statistical information on the lotteries of goods and services.

9. Performance of systematic inventory and statistical analysis of the lotteries and gambling market.

10. Making sure of accrual to the state budget of the planned amount of lotteries and gambling duty and tax, of accrual of the marking sign stamp duty, in order to analyse validity and efficiency of decisions made, as well as planning state budget income for the following terms.

11.  Taking part in casino encashment procedure, by drawing a casino encashment protocol. Carrying out summary of the casino encashment protocols and comparing of the statistical information obtained to data provided by capital companies in accountancy of gambling net income.

12. Performing distribution and utilization inventory for mandatory documents prescribed by the bookkeeping accountancy of the single lotteries and gambling organization.

13. Elaboration of draft laws and regulations related to arrangement of lotteries and gambling, as well as arrangement of lotteries of goods and services.

14. Performing control in lotteries and gambling arrangement venues, compliance of the gaming venue with law requirements and presence of license, compliance of gaming rules present at the game venue to the game programmes actually provided, check of the casino visitor registration and check of the video surveillance system compliance with law requirements.

15. Performing checks in places, where goods are handled and services are provided and lotteries are arranged; in places, where identification of winning persons is carried out and in places, where documentation and databases related to arrangement of lotteries of goods and services.