The Dominican Republic is making strides to bring its gambling industry into the current century through the integration of two major legislative bills into a single, unified gambling regulatory regime.
Senator Pedro Catrain tabled one of the bills, a broader gaming bill that incorporates various types of gaming activities, while Senator Félix Bautista introduced a more narrow bill aimed specifically at betting on sporting events. The legislation seeks to eliminate inconsistencies and provide a comprehensive structure for regulating all gambling activities within the Dominican Republic.
During the past several months, legislators have worked on amending many provisions in both proposals as part of the consolidation process and have made significant progress toward developing a unified gambling regulatory model.
Both pieces of legislation have similar goals concerning the improvement of oversight and market integrity, and the combined legislation will provide:
- Clarity in licensing and supervision
- Improved enforcement mechanisms
- Protection of players’ rights
- Prevention of fraud
In addition to providing clarity to regulatory authorities regarding licensing and regulating cruise ships that create casinos onboard, vessels transporting more than 2,000 passengers will also require a formal permit if they intend to remain in Dominican territorial waters for greater than six consecutive hours.
This measure represents the contribution of cruise ship tourism to the growing importance of this segment of the tourism industry within the Dominican Republic, where nearly three million visitors arrived in 2025 as a result of cruise line travel.
Regulatory authorities also indicated that they are concerned about financial crime associated with casino gaming on cruise ships. To reduce the risk of financial crime associated with casinos located on cruise ships, the proposed revisions would extend the same compliance standards for land-based casinos located in luxury hotels to cruise ship casinos. By doing this, regulators hope to mitigate future instances of money laundering and other illegal financing activities related to gaming.
