Unsurprisingly for a country with relatively open gambling laws, the Georgian lari is regularly used at top GEL online casinos. When they aren’t offering online services, land-based Georgian lari casinos are catering to locals and tourists alike, with around thirteen casinos operating in the country. Given the population of Georgia is only 3.7m, there is a massive array of GEL online casinos for you to choose from. We’ll help you get started playing at the best of them with our casino list below.
The Georgian lari gets its name from an old word meaning “hoard”. Georgia has been through several currencies in its existence, not least the maneti, abazi, and kuponi. The lari replaced the latter in 1995 and has proven to be much more simplistic than its predecessors, which often suffered from hyperinflation. For instance, today, you can get roughly 3.08 GEL to 1 USD.
Georgia is a country that is surrounding by neighbours who do not appreciate online gambling. In most cases, those Muslim countries have firmly opposed gambling for religious reasons. There is none of that going on in Georgia, though. In fact, this country thrives on gambling. Gross revenues from gambling (reported in 2018) are thought to have been worth €5 billion. This is an enormous some for such a small country.
Georgia doesn’t just permit online gambling; it actively embraces it. Even though they have a small population, Georgia’s casinos (and betting sites) are never short of visitors. The main reason for this is that their Muslim friends from neighbouring countries flock to Georgia to gamble. It is far less risky than doing so in countries with Sharia Law.
Many players based elsewhere in the world are also eager to play at Georgian casinos, even if they aren’t necessarily interested in using Georgian laris to bet. Of course, those sites must pay between 50,000 and 1,000,000 GEL ($20,000 to $400,000) to obtain a licence from the Revenue Service and be deemed legal GEL online casinos.