Dominican Republic freezes new gambling licenses for 10 years and introduces prison terms

The Dominican Congress has updated the country’s 1964 gambling law, and the bill now awaits the president’s signature. The core move is simple enough: a new single regulator, DGJA, would take over casinos, lotteries, betting, bingo, slot machines, and online gambling, while new licensing would be frozen for 10 years.

1. The government would stop issuing new gambling licenses for a decade and keep operating only with the current registry of operators, with one exception: hotel and resort casinos. Before expanding anything else, the authorities want a full market audit.
2. Online gambling platforms would have to operate strictly in the .do zone and pay 10% of turnover every month. Unlicensed websites and the payments connected to them would be blocked, which makes this a payments problem as much as a licensing one.
3. The reform also creates a player self-exclusion registry, and part of the fines would go toward treating gambling addiction. Penalties for violations go up to 400 minimum wages and up to 10 years in prison.
4. The local market is still driven less by online casinos than by tens of thousands of street lottery and betting outlets that have operated in a gray area for years. New distance rules between shops have already worried industry associations, which fear mass closures and a shift of players underground.
5. Online gambling was legalized in 2024, with licenses issued by the Ministry of Finance for 5 years. By mid-2026, the Dominican Republic had around 30 licensed online operators and more than 60 land-based casinos, so this reform effectively puts that growth on pause.

For PSPs, the important detail is the combination of a licensing freeze, mandatory local-domain operation, and explicit blocking of unlicensed sites and related payments. In practice, that means Dominican exposure will depend less on whether a merchant is “in gaming” and more on whether the operator is inside the new DGJA framework and the .do requirements.