In Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic, a prominent public health advocacy organization focused on combating gambling addiction has sounded an urgent alarm over unpublicized draft legislative initiatives that would dramatically broaden access to legal gambling across the Caribbean nation.
The Association Against Gambling Addiction outlines that one of the most consequential proposed changes would revise the country’s existing 2002 gambling law, Law 140-02, by striking a key spatial regulation requiring all physical sports betting outlets to maintain a minimum 500-meter distance from one another. The group warns that removing this regulation would clear the way for an uncontrolled surge in the number of betting locations across the country, drastically increasing the general public’s daily exposure to gambling opportunities and raising the risk of widespread addiction.
Beyond the spatial zoning change, the association has also flagged concerns about a separate push to expand the scope of licensed horse racing agencies. The organization alleges that the expansion would open a regulatory loophole, allowing these agencies to offer a full range of unregulated gambling activities outside of their legal mandate of horse race wagering, even though current law explicitly prohibits such practices.
In its most striking claim, the association stated that behind-the-scenes agreements between unidentified parties could result in as many as 25,000 new legal gambling locations opening across the Dominican Republic. To date, however, the organization has not released supporting documentation to back up this claim, nor has it named the specific stakeholders alleged to be involved in the agreements.
Along with its opposition to the proposed expansions, the group is calling for sweeping, stricter oversight of the rapidly growing online gambling sector. It has pushed lawmakers to implement enhanced regulatory monitoring of both domestic and international online gambling platforms operating in the country, as well as introduce clearer, more robust taxation frameworks for all online gambling operators.
The association has issued a formal call to Dominican legislators, urging that any revisions to the country’s gambling legislation be subjected to full, transparent public debate. It emphasized that lawmakers must fully weigh the potential negative social, economic, and public health consequences of expanding gambling access before advancing any regulatory changes.
As of the time of this reporting, neither the Dominican National Congress nor the national regulatory body that oversees the gambling sector has issued a public response to the organization’s allegations. No official piece of draft legislation matching the organization’s description of the proposed gambling expansions has been made public or formally introduced to the legislative body.