Dominican Republic enacts its gaming law and appoints Tabar to the DGJA
The Dominican Republic now has an active gambling law and a person responsible for its implementation. Luis Abinader promulgated the regulation that governs gambling in the country and, through Decree 684-26, provisionally appointed Teófilo Quico Tabar Manzur to head the General Directorate of Gambling (Dirección General de Juegos de Azar), the body created by the new framework. Law 86-26 was published in Official Gazette No. 11,263.
The chosen profile comes from the process that preceded the regulation. Tabar had been coordinating the sector and will now consolidate the executive leadership of the regulator, its internal administration, and its representation before third parties under one signature. The same decree maintains the Advisory Council established by Decree No. 533-21, which will provide honorary advice to outline sector policies, and requires the rest of the state apparatus to provide active collaboration until the DGJA is operational.
License terms were the most debated point during the parliamentary process. Lottery agencies and retail outlets ended up with five-year authorizations, well above the two years proposed in the initial drafts. For casinos, Article 47 limits operation to four-star hotels or higher, with ten-year licenses to be issued by the new body, and requires a separate permit for the same duration for slot machine rooms.
The law also intervenes in the country's commercial landscape. No point of sale may be installed within 500 meters of hospitals, churches, state headquarters, universities, and schools. Between sports betting shops and horse racing agencies, the required separation is also 500 meters, while between lottery agencies it drops to 200 meters. Casinos are exempt from this distance regime.
What the promulgated text resolves with less detail is the online channel, the segment where regulation arrives later than the activity itself. The provisional nature of the appointment adds a note of caution about the stage that is beginning, because the regulator must establish its structure, register operators, and open compliance files with a head who is not yet definitive. The Dominican sector had been operating with dispersed regulations and provisional coordination since 2021, so the first real indicator of the new scheme will not be the law itself, but the pace at which the first licenses are issued.
Tags: Law 86-26, DGJA, Quico Tabar, gaming in the Dominican Republic