The Budget and Finance Committee of Lithuania’s Seimas (Parliamentary Assembly) has completed a draft decree proposing new standards on lottery play and advertising for the Baltic state.

The Committee’s headline measure has called on parliament to undertake a vote to raise the minimum age of purchase of lottery tickets from 16-to-18 years of age. If approved, Lithuania’s government will enforce a new lottery age restriction from 1 January 2023.

The decree has further ordered Olifėja, Lithuania’s state-sanctioned operator, to display age-range notifications and safer gambling warnings across its weekly lottery draws of Teleloto, Vikinglotto, Eurojackpot and further Instant-win games.

Olifėja serves as Lithuania’s national lottery steward, charged with raising funds for the National Olympic Committee, its business activities monitored by Lithuania’s Gaming Control Authority.

Since 2020, the successive Lithuanian governments of PMs Saulius Skvernelis and Ingrida Šimonytė have chosen to amend the laws of the 2016 Gambling Act.

Last year, the government ordered the Gaming Control Authority to ban all licensed operators from promoting any form of gambling incentive (bonuses, discounts, reward programmes).

Furthermore, the government granted the Gaming Control Authority direct powers to IP-block unlicensed operators and to issue bigger fines on non-compliant operators, changes that were sanctioned as a COVID-19 civic protection measure.

Lithuania carries amongst the strictest age laws for gambling in Europe, in which players must be +21 years of age to enter a gambling venue.

Real Betis Balompié have signed a partnership agreement with the sports betting brand Olybet for the Baltic region.

Ramón Alarcón, general business manager at Real Betis, showed his satisfaction about the deal: “Partnering with Olybet, the top sports betting brand in the region, provides a larger scale of digital platforms to engage fans and players and develop professional football as a great sports show.”

“Congratulations to the winners of the Copa del Rey trophy! Real Betis is a great team with a long history and ambitions for future,” said the chairman and CEO of Olympic Entertainment Group and OlyBet Group, Corey Plummer and added that their customers will now receive more opportunities to engage with the football club via live broadcasts and games, local events, social media and the best betting experiences in Europe.

OlyBet has been recognised as the leading market player in the Baltic states for a long time and has positioned itself strongly throughout Europe during the last few years. According to Plummer, OlyBet’s recent partnerships with international sports brands, Real Betis, NBA, NHL, AC Fiorentina and sportsman Luka Modri?, have laid a solid foundation for OlyBet’s brand positioning and growth in Europe.

Plummer added that OlyBet and OlyBet TV, offer a new form of participation for sports fans. The overall idea is to combine sports entertainment and news via OlyBet TV platform. Fans in European countries with OlyBet’s presence have the possibility to partake through the betting environment of the OlyBet sports portal. OlyBet Club provides loyal customers the possibility to attend major sports events, meeting and encouraging professional players at home stadiums and joining exclusive entertainment experiences.

William Hill, one of the largest and most recognisable brands in the gaming industry has gone ‘live’ in Latvia this month, all proudly powered by Gaming innovation Group’s (GiG) award-winning iGaming platform.

Whilst strengthening GiG’s existing presence in the country, this launch see’s the realisation of the first steps for the William Hill label into the burgeoning Latvian market, with the two companies partnering to fully rebrand the site of one of the previous leading operators, from 11.lv to williamhill.lv.

William Hill’s new online Latvian offering has been built using GiG’s much lauded frontend framework and will provide its players with an attractive, user-friendly and competitive online casino and sportsbook. With a unique look and feel, the quality of GiG’s delivery promises that they will stand out as a leading operator within the Latvian market, both now and into the future.

Richard Brown, CEO said: “We are proud that William Hill has chosen our frontend solution for the rebrand and launch of its newly acquired online casino and sportsbook sites for Latvia. We look forward to continuing to support William Hill in their success and expansion in the Latvian market ”

Janis Tregers, Managing Director for William Hill Latvia: “We are very excited to continue our journey in the Latvian market by working with such a strong brand as William Hill. 11.lv has served us well and will be missed, but the transition comes easier to ourselves and our customers in large part because of the improvements in the product we have been able to deliver in collaboration with GiG to accompany this rebrand.”