Dominican Republic betting market expansion draws warnings over licensing, tax leakage, and uneven competition

Ricardo Nadal, president of the Asociación de Bancas Deportivas de República Dominicana, says the country’s betting market has grown in a way that is hard to reconcile with the licensing rules on paper. For PSPs and high-risk operators, the point is simple: when distribution expands faster than the regulatory perimeter, tax collection, site checks, and product classification all get messy at once.

1. Nadal questioned the growth of lottery outlets and horse-racing agencies in the Dominican Republic, and said the expansion has created room for unfair competition and a drop in tax revenue. He also called for a review of the draft law regulating gambling.
2. He said the lottery-betting sector kept expanding over the past decades despite a suspension of new licenses under Law 139-11. According to his estimate, there are now around 150,000 lottery betting shops in the country, and the number is still rising.
3. He also pointed to horse-racing agencies, which were originally created under Law 493 of 1943 to handle bets linked to horse races. Nadal said that from 1943 to 2019 there were only 166 such agencies, but after a decree issued in 2019, the network expanded rapidly and may now include close to 70,000 operating points.
4. According to Nadal, many of these agencies are now offering sports betting, virtual games, and other entertainment products, even though their original purpose was narrower. He also said some outlets are operating near hospitals, schools, and sports betting shops without proper location and distance criteria.
5. Nadal said a sports betting shop contributes about 100,000 pesos a month in taxes, while lottery betting shops contribute about 7,000 pesos a month, based on his estimates. In his view, the spread of new betting points under different legal categories could cut fiscal income and create uneven competition in the market.

He added that the sports betting sector has been pushing since 2011 for the creation of a National Gambling Directorate, with the idea of having a specialized body to organize and supervise the activity. The sector, he said, joined meetings and working groups with lawmakers to build a negotiated regulatory proposal, but the current bill has changed from the original agreements.