Many casinos accept Latvian players without holding an IAUI licence. They are accessible, often generous, and outside the protection of Latvian law.
What a foreign licence gives you
A Malta or Curaçao licence is not worthless. It means the operator follows some rules, somewhere. But in a dispute over a refused payout, the authority involved will not be Latvian and will not act under Latvian law. Your complaint goes to a regulator that may take months, if it answers at all.
What the IAUI adds
Licensed operators are bound by Latvian rules on payouts, advertising and player protection, and the IAUI can sanction them. That is why every casino reviewed on this site holds one — and why this page exists: to explain what you give up by playing elsewhere.
Latvia also blocks access to unlicensed sites at the network level. If a casino is reachable only through a VPN, that is the regulator telling you something.