About Contact Privacy Policy Advertising Disclosure

The top 10 casinos you should visit in Georgia

Legal status of brick & mortar casinos in Georgia: legal since 1989, operators require a licence

Georgia is one of the few countries in the predominately muslim and orthodox region where both gambling and online gambling are officially legal. Consequently Georgia capitalizes on this unique situation and purposefully works on attracting players from nearby muslim and orthodox countries (mostly from Turkey, where casinos were outlawed and Russia, where there are barely any casinos). One of the towns, Batumi, is even nicknamed “The Las Vegas of the Black Sea” a resort, beach town that has more casinos than the capital of the country.

Batumi was also the place where the first casino opened in 1989, when the country was still part of the USSR. In 1989 laws were relaxed, and a casino opened in Batumi catering to communist party elites (that’s actually where Batumi’s image as a casino town comes from, it’s where communist party officials went to gamble).

Casinos are actually quite popular in Georgia, both among locals and tourists.

The largest casino in Georgia is Casino Adjara, in Tbilisi, the capital (you can see the list of casinos below).

An interesting feature of the casinos in Georgia is the lottery system. There are various lottery draws in all of the Georgian casinos. It’s actually a raffle, it’s just a misnomer, players can win money or cars if they get lucky (even though other countries have so called “slot tournaments”, which are similar, in Georgia this is ubiquitous, all casinos have these lottery draws and it’s not based on how much you play on the slots, it’s a raffle, pure luck).

There are currently 12 licensed casinos in Georgia: 5 in Tbilisi, 6 in Batumi, and 1 in the countryside.
You can find all the currently operating brick and mortar casinos in the list below.


Can locals visit the casinos in Georgia?
Yes, both locals and tourists can play in the casinos.


Casino licensing and regulatory body of Georgia:
The Ministry of Finance of Georgia is responsible of licensing and overseeing the gambling sector of the country.

Gambling officially belongs to the entertainment industry and it is meant to encourage the development of the tourism industry, according to the official stance of the government. The local authorities support tourism and facilitate the development of the gambling industry because of this.

Casino licenses are issued by the Revenue Service (part of the Ministry of Finance).

The fees usually range between 50,000 to 1 million GEL ($20,000 to $400,000), you have to pay the most in Tbilisi and in the countryside it’s 50,000 GEL.

Casino license are valid for 5 years.