The 2026 OlyBet Showdown Riga Voodoo Autumn Edition fires September 19-27 at Olympic Voodoo Casino, one of the best poker venues in the Baltics and the home of the OlyBet Showdown Riga series. Nine days, 26 tournaments, 24/7 cash games, and the €1,100 NLH Main Event headlining the week. poker.pro will be on the ground throughout with pre-event content in the days before the festival, live reporting on the final day of the €555 NLH Championship and all three decisive days of the €1,100 Main Event, daily recap articles, and social media coverage throughout. If you have not been to Riga for a poker festival before, this is the one to start with. If you have, you already know what is coming.

Why OlyBet Gets It Right

I have covered OlyBet events across Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania for several years now, and I have been saying the same thing every time: nobody in the Baltics organises live poker the way OlyBet does. The staff, the schedules, the production, the attention to detail at every level of the operation. Every time I think they have found their ceiling, they raise it. The Autumn edition of the OlyBet Showdown Riga arrives with that same expectation.

What OlyBet has figured out that most operators have not is that a great poker festival is not just about the tournaments. It is about what the room feels like when you walk into it. Olympic Voodoo Casino during an OlyBet Showdown is a specific place. The branding transforms the room. There is music. There is genuine energy at the tables rather than the low-level hum of a field grinding through levels because they paid to be there. Players are engaged, social, and frequently having a better time than they expected. You see the same faces across multiple events during the week because the schedule is designed to keep people in the building and in the action, not just run one event and send everyone home. By day four or five, the room has a community feel to it. That does not happen by accident.

The schedule is built to serve every kind of player. The week opens on Saturday with the €250 NLH Opening Event, which plays down to its final table on Day 2 Sunday. The €555 NLH Championship is the mid-week centrepiece, two starting flights on Monday and Tuesday leading to a Final Day on Wednesday that poker.pro will be live reporting on-site. The €350 Mystery Bounty fires Friday into Saturday with envelopes opened on Day 2, the most entertaining format in live poker right now. The €200 Mini Main Event gives players who prefer a lighter buy-in their own three-flight structure. The Queens Progressive Bounty on Saturday gives the women’s game its own dedicated slot. And the €1,100 NLH Main Event runs three Day 1 flights across Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday before Day 2 Saturday and the Final Day Sunday, giving everyone a way in regardless of when they arrive.

Around all of that: PLO events, NLH turbos, satellites at €30 and €80 guaranteeing multiple seats, and cash games running 24 hours a day. You can satellite into the Main Event on the morning of Day 1C if you want. You can play a €200 NLH Evening Turbo at 9pm after busting the Championship. You can sit in a PLO cash game at 3am. The schedule is designed so that there is never a reason to leave the building if you do not want to, and a perfectly good reason to leave it if you do. OlyBet has thought about this from the player’s perspective, not the operator’s, and it shows in every edition.

I have been to OlyBet events at this casino multiple times. The atmosphere OlyBet creates inside Olympic Voodoo Casino during a festival is unlike anything else on the Baltic circuit. By the time the Main Event final day arrives on Sunday September 27, the room will feel like somewhere worth being. That is not something you can manufacture. OlyBet has earned it.

About The Venue: Olympic Voodoo Casino

Olympic Voodoo Casino sits at Elizabetes iela 55 in the heart of Riga’s central district, inside the Radisson Blu Latvija Conference and Spa Hotel, the largest hotel in Latvia. The casino is the largest in the Baltic States, covering approximately 24,500 square feet of gaming floor, and operates around the clock seven days a week. During festival week the poker operation expands to accommodate the full tournament schedule, with dedicated cash game tables running in parallel throughout.

The location is genuinely exceptional for a poker festival. You are on Elizabetes Street, one of the most beautiful boulevards in the Baltic region, lined with Art Nouveau architecture and within a ten-minute walk of Riga’s Old Town, the city’s UNESCO World Heritage historic centre. The Esplanade Park is across the road. The Latvian National Opera is five minutes on foot. The entire city spreads out around you, which matters for the non-playing hours between sessions. Riga gives you a city worth stepping outside for.

The Radisson Blu is directly connected to the casino, meaning your room is a minute from the poker tables. The Shogun Japanese restaurant on the first floor of the Voodoo Casino runs a 24-hour sushi bar. The Voodoo Lounge runs live entertainment on weekends. OlyBet sports betting terminals are available for anyone who wants to track a game between hands. The tournament registration desk and cashier are open 24/7, and players can buy in using cash, debit cards, credit cards, or Olympic Casino cash chips. ATMs are available on the casino floor and in the hotel lobby.

Riga in September

Riga is one of the most underrated cities in Europe for a poker trip. The old town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with medieval architecture, Art Nouveau buildings, and a walkable central area. Late September is one of the better times to visit: peak summer crowds are gone, temperatures are still pleasant, and the restaurants and bars are fully operational. Riga International Airport is 10 kilometres from the centre with direct flights from London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Helsinki, Warsaw, and most major European hubs. Latvia is part of the Schengen Area and uses the euro. The cost of living is meaningfully lower than Western Europe, which means money not spent on food, transport, and accommodation goes across the poker table instead.

The Last Two OlyBet Showdown Riga Highlights

The most recent OlyBet Showdown Riga was the Spring 2026 edition in March. Lithuania’s Justas Vaičiulionis won the €1,100 Main Event for €34,950 from a €150,100 prize pool after overcoming a 158-entry field, defeating fellow Lithuanian Artūras Kesleris heads-up in a four-hour battle after mounting a comeback from a 6:1 chip deficit. The €555 NLH Championship that same week was won by Latvia’s Normunds Rumba. You can read all of poker.pro’s daily coverage from the Spring 2026 edition at the 2026 OlyBet Showdown Riga live reporting page.

Before that, the Autumn 2025 edition produced a brilliant Main Event winner in Lithuania’s Arunas Satkus, an amateur more accustomed to playing €55-€250 buy-ins who stepped up to the €1,100 Main Event and outplayed a 150-entry field to claim €33,330 from a €142,500 prize pool. Satkus defeated Germany’s Konstantin Farber heads-up in a memorable final table where Farber had come back from less than one big blind with nine players remaining. The 2025 €555 NLH Championship was won by Latvia’s Jānis Meņģelis for €19,845 from a record 185-entry field, defeating American Xavier Luis Lyu heads-up. Both editions confirmed what OlyBet’s Riga festivals deliver consistently: diverse international fields, strong structures, and champions from across the region.

Edition	Event	Winner	Prize	Entries
Spring 2026	€1,100 Main Event	Justas Vaičiulionis	€34,950	158
Spring 2026	€555 Championship	Normunds Rumba	€19,435	181
Autumn 2025	€1,100 Main Event	Arunas Satkus	€33,330	150
Autumn 2025	€555 Championship	Jānis Meņģelis	€19,845	185

Hotels

OlyBet has negotiated festival rates at four hotels for the Autumn 2026 edition using promo code POKER26. Book directly through the links below.

The 2026 OlyBet Showdown Riga Voodoo Autumn Edition Schedule

Twenty-six events across nine days. The €555 NLH Championship runs Day 1A on Monday September 21, Day 1B on Tuesday September 22, and the Final Day on Wednesday September 23. The €1,100 NLH Main Event runs Day 1A on Wednesday September 23, Day 1B on Thursday September 24, Day 1C on Friday September 25, Day 2 on Saturday September 26, and the Final Day on Sunday September 27. The €350 Mystery Bounty runs across Friday and Saturday with envelopes opened on Day 2. The €200 Mini Main Event runs three flights across Sunday, Thursday, and Friday into a Final Day Saturday. A Queens Progressive Bounty for women-only players fires Saturday September 26. Cash games run 24/7 throughout.

★ denotes events with poker.pro live reporting on-site. Full schedule and PDF download at olybetevents.com.

How to Qualify

Online satellites are running now on OlyBet Poker with daily low buy-in options starting from Centrolls, giving players the chance to qualify for the €555 Championship and €1,100 Main Event finals at a fraction of the live buy-in. On-site satellites run throughout the festival week, with €80 Mega Satellites guaranteeing multiple Main Event seats and rebuy satellites available from €20 and €30. Players arriving for any flight during the festival week will find a satellite path in.

The 2026 OlyBet Showdown Riga Voodoo Autumn Edition starts September 19. poker.pro will be on the ground with pre-event previews in the days before, live reporting on the €555 Championship final day and all three decisive days of the €1,100 Main Event, daily recap articles, and social media throughout the festival. All coverage published at poker.pro.

• Images courtesy of OlyBet Poker
• Article originally produced at poker.pro.