Dominican Republic establishes responsible gambling rules and national self-exclusion system

The Dominican Republic has introduced a new responsible gambling framework that requires licensed operators to adopt player-protection tools, strengthen advertising controls and connect to a national self-exclusion system.

The Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Finance and Economy has issued Resolution No. 184-2026, establishing new responsible gambling rules and creating a National Self-Exclusion System for the country’s gaming sector. The measure is designed to promote safer gambling practices, prevent problem gambling and involve operators, regulators, public institutions and civil society in player protection.

The new framework applies broadly across the Dominican gambling market. The official text states that the rules are mandatory for gambling operators in the country, including lottery shops, sports betting outlets, casinos, slot-machine halls, online gambling, virtual games, electronic lottery concessionaires, the National Lottery, bingos, raffles, horse-racing betting companies and other gambling activities in any form.

Operators will be required to implement approved responsible gambling policies and procedures, including time and money limits for betting, self-exclusion options and programmes to prevent gambling addiction. They must also train employees and strategic partners on responsible gambling, identifying problematic behaviour and using tools such as deposit limits and self-exclusion programmes.

A central part of the reform is the National Self-Exclusion Register, which will be managed by the Dirección de Casinos y Juegos de Azar in coordination with the Ministry of Finance and Economy. The system will be mandatory for all gambling operators and will serve as the main database for preventing self-excluded players from accessing gambling products or services.

The rules also introduce stricter technical requirements for online platforms, casinos and slot-machine halls. Operators must offer tools that allow players to view gambling history, set time, spending and deposit limits, receive warnings, pause sessions, close sessions quickly and block selected game categories. Online platforms will also have to send alerts at least every 60 minutes during play.

Self-exclusion will last for at least six months. Operators with online platforms, casinos and slot-machine halls must maintain technical mechanisms that allow real-time consultation of the register and immediate blocking of self-excluded players. Lottery and sports betting operators must also adopt measures suited to their operations, including identity checks at the moment of prize payment.

The resolution also tightens advertising and marketing rules. Gambling ads must not target minors, suggest that gambling leads to wealth or financial wellbeing, omit responsible gambling warnings, or appear in places where minors and vulnerable groups are more likely to be exposed. Operators must also include responsible gambling information on their websites and display health warnings in gambling venues.

Compliance will be supervised by the Dirección de Casinos y Juegos de Azar. Operators must carry out independent audits of their responsible gambling programmes, while the regulator will publish an annual compliance report with statistics from the self-exclusion register and training data reported by operators. Licence holders will have six months from publication to implement the new requirements.

For the Dominican gambling market, the reform marks a shift from basic licensing control toward a more structured consumer-protection model. The challenge will now be implementation: operators must adapt systems, staff training, advertising, payment checks and data-security processes, while the regulator will need to ensure that self-exclusion works consistently across both land-based and online gambling channels.