Elza Purmale

Elza Purmale is the editor of casino-optibet.com. She writes about how gambling licensing and player protection work in Latvia: how to identify the company behind a gambling site, what a licensed operator owes its players, and how self-exclusion works when someone needs a long break. Her articles are neither advertising nor legal advice. They are a route map to the primary source, so that a reader can confirm the answer without relying on her word.

How Elza checks a claim

Every article starts with the same question: what can the reader verify alone, and where exactly? That gives each topic a similar checklist:

• The company. Which legal name appears in the operator's terms and conditions, and whether that name matches the list of licensed gambling organisers published by VID, the Latvian State Revenue Service.
• The terms. What they say about identity checks, bonus conditions, closing an account and filing a complaint, and which version date they carry.
• Protection tools. Whether limits, breaks and the link to the Latvian self-exclusion register are described, and how many clicks it takes to find them.
• Numbers. Whether a figure has a source. If it does not, it does not appear in her text as a fact.

After that, each statement lands in one of three groups: confirmed in a primary source; dependent on the operator and the account, so to be checked in the cashier or the terms; or unknown. She does not hide the third group. “Not recorded” is a more honest answer than a convincing number that nobody can trace.

The sources she relies on

• VID pages: the list of licensed gambling organisers and the description of the self-exclusion register. Gambling supervision in Latvia has sat with VID since spring 2026, so the current position is looked up there and nowhere else.
• Operators' terms and conditions, as published on the day she reads them. Terms change, so she always reminds readers to open the current version rather than trust a summary.
• The self-exclusion procedure as VID describes it: what the register is, the minimum term of 12 months, and where the application procedure is explained.
• Help line information from azartaatkariba.lv: the number +371 293 232 02 and the opening hours as stated there.
• Game information panels and provider data, only where figures are documented. Everything else is marked as unknown.

What Elza will not write

• Promises of winnings, “safe” systems or strategies that claim to beat the house edge.
• Statements on an operator's behalf: bonus sizes, minimum deposits, payout times, game counts or a flat “this brand is licensed”. She explains how to check instead.
• Pages that imitate an operator's site or suggest that this is a place to gamble.
• Invented player reviews, names, home towns or star ratings.
• Stories about “real-money testing” that come with no evidence.

Writing for readers outside Latvia

The English pages are read by people in many countries, and Elza keeps that in mind. When she describes the VID list or the self-exclusion register, she frames it as what applies if you are in Latvia, and she says plainly when another country will have different rules, a different regulator and its own register, if it has one at all. She does not try to summarise foreign law she has not checked. Instead she points to the method that works anywhere: find the company in the terms, look it up with the regulator where you live, and read the conditions before agreeing to them.

How she handles change

Lists, procedures and web addresses move. Each page shows the month of its last update, and Elza reviews a text when its source changes. This page was updated in October 2026. When a public body changes its name or address, as happened when gambling supervision moved to VID, she fixes the links first and the surrounding text second, so that nobody is sent to an empty page. Where two sources contradict each other, the article says so openly instead of picking the more convenient version.

Reporting an error to Elza

If you find a mistake in one of her articles, write to info@casino-optibet.com. Three things help: the page address, the exact sentence you believe is wrong, and a source showing the correct information, such as a VID page or a clause in an operator's terms. She checks the report against the primary source; if the error is confirmed, the text is corrected and the page date updated. She cannot help with a problem in your casino account, because only the operator can see it. Our page Where to get help explains where to go instead.

Independence and funding

casino-optibet.com is funded by partner links, and Elza knows that as well as her readers do. That is why the partner button on this site is always called “Partner offer” and never promises to take you to Optibet. How it works, and why you should check the company with the regulator before registering anywhere, is set out on the affiliate disclosure page. Who runs the site is described on About us.

About the author

Elza Purmale edits casino-optibet.com and writes about gambling licences, self-exclusion and player rights in Latvia. Her method is simple and repeatable: the primary source rather than a retelling, a clear label on what is verifiable and what is not, and a practical tip on how readers can confirm it themselves. She does not publish claims that cannot be checked, and she does not present herself as a lawyer, an auditor or an employee of any operator.

When something is unknown, for instance which RTP version a particular operator runs or what a current bonus requires, her text says so and points to where the answer lives: the game's information panel, the terms or the cashier.