💣 Dominican Republic🇩🇴: House of Deputies approves gambling regulation bill

💣 Dominican Republic🇩🇴: House of Deputies approves gambling regulation bill

After nearly two years of legislative review, the House of Deputies approved on second reading a bill establishing rules for the licensing, supervision, consumer protection, and oversight of both land-based and online gambling operations.
✅ Regulator: under Article 8, the bill establishes the General Directorate of Gambling (DGJA) as an autonomous and decentralized public agency with its own legal personality.

✅ Operator licensing: according to Article 47, casinos and sportsbooks may operate only under a DGJA license valid for 10 years. Gaming halls and virtual platforms will also require an additional license with the same validity period.

👉 Once the licensing process for current applicants is completed (the list of which has already been published), a 10-year moratorium on the issuance of new licenses will come into effect, except for land-based casinos located in hotels and tourist areas.

✅ Location requirements: Article 26 requires sports betting outlets to maintain a minimum distance of 500 meters from one another and prohibits their operation near schools, healthcare facilities, police stations, and other protected locations.

✅ Potential regulatory inconsistency: Article 86 introduces a provision that allows sports betting operators to offer electronic or virtual games within their establishments. However, another provision contained in Article 101 appears to impose restrictions on this activity, which may require additional legal interpretation or regulatory clarification.

✅ Sanctions regime: The bill establishes administrative and criminal penalties, including prison sentences ranging from 1 to 10 years, as well as financial fines, for offenses such as operating without a license, promoting illegal gambling activities, manipulating bets or sporting results, tampering with gaming machines, or advertising unauthorized foreign gambling platforms.

✅ Tax framework: the tax provisions associated with the new regulatory regime have not yet been fully clarified.

✅ The bill also specifies that recreational games or competitions without financial benefit for organizers or operators, and which do not involve the transfer of economic value between participants, will remain outside the scope of the legislation.

✅ Following its approval with amendments by the House of Deputies, the bill must now return to the Senate of the Dominican Republic, which will review the proposed changes before making a final decision on its adoption.

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