(Update April 2010!!! The old days of the police not helping tourists in Riga are gone. Now if you have any problem you can call the tourism police at +371 67181818 and you can be certain that they will assist you. See this post for more details!)

Unfortunately most stripclubs in Riga are set up to squeeze the most money out of you as quickly as possible. They will try to lure you in with the promise of free drinks but once you are inside you will find yourself quickly set upon by a few pretty women who will chat you up and try to get you to order for them as many cocktails as possible. Be very careful as these drinks for the women can sometimes cost as much as 30 to 50 Lats each!!! Typically after about 1 hour you will have spent 300 Ls and not have received even so much as one table dance for you trouble!

Especially avoid the “Private Rooms”! It is very typical for the women to try to talk you into a private room for a “special show.” Most often you will get nothing “special” but it is quite common for the girls to set an open bottle of champagne on the table as part of the “party.” Only later do you find out that you are being charged as much as 2000 Lats for the bottle!!!! This is very common scam unfortunately. If you refuse to pay the club will often call the police who will force you to pay. Do not expect the police to assist you in Riga! They quite often have a mutually beneficial “arrangement” with the stripclubs and they will be happy to beat you up to force you to pay the 2000 Ls bill!!!

We have many first hand accounts of this happening in many strip clubs. Particularly avoid the stripclubs in Old Riga!!! These are the most notorious for these kinds of scams. If you enter one of these clubs you will be scammed!

In general it is best to avoid the stripclubs entirely unless you have someone with connections at the club to assure that you do not get the “tourist” treatment. For these kinds of events or Stag nights it is best to book a party through a legitimate tour agency who can make sure you don’t get scammed.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Riga Rip Offs, Riga Stripclubs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.