Dominican Republic bans new lottery betting shops and gives operators 30 days to identify tech providers

The Dominican Republic’s Dirección General de Juegos de Azar (DGJA) has formally started operations under Teófilo Tabar Manzur and moved immediately to tighten control over the lottery sector. For PSPs, software vendors, and merchants tied to lottery-style distribution, the important part is simple: new openings are blocked, and existing operators now have a short deadline to document who actually runs their tech stack.

1. Through Resolución Núm. 01-2026, the DGJA banned the opening of new lottery betting shops, agencies, and sales points, as well as the installation of lottery vending machines in places where current legislation does not allow them. The resolution also calls for the voluntary closure of establishments operating in breach of the rules.
2. If operators do not comply, the authorities can apply sanctions. The resolution says that once an infringement is confirmed, penalties may extend to other establishments, related businesses, and the infringing operator’s lottery drawings, where legally applicable. That is the kind of language compliance teams tend to read twice.
3. The DGJA also created an Ad Hoc Committee for technical and advisory support, with up to seven officials, to speed up pending cases and applications. The agency’s headquarters will be next to Lotería Nacional in Centro de los Héroes, Distrito Nacional, while during the transition, filings will continue to be received at the former offices of the Dirección de Casinos.
4. All previous badges and credentials were cancelled. From now on, only official identification documents issued by the new management will be valid for duly authorized officials and staff. The resolution also sets up a System for Receiving and Handling Complaints and Claims to investigate issues such as unpaid prizes, fraudulent practices, and the operation of unlicensed establishments.
5. On the technology side, the DGJA gave consortia, concessionaires, and operators 30 calendar days to formally identify their programmers, developers, and software providers. The stated goal is to bring these parties into public supervision and strengthen control over the platforms and tools used in gaming operations.

The resolution also mentions an extraordinary regularization process for operators, which matters because regulatory clean-up like this usually reshapes who can keep processing payments, who needs to re-paper relationships, and who gets pushed out of the channel entirely.