GAT Showcase Santo Domingo: Claudia Álvarez Troncoso explains the regulatory progress in gambling in the Dominican Republic

As part of the series of conferences with specialists in the games of chance industry that took place on September 18 and 19 at the Renaissance Santo Domingo Jaguara Hotel and Casino, Claudia Álvarez Troncoso, Director of Casinos and Games of Chance of the Ministry of The Treasury of the Dominican Republic, expanded on the regulatory progress in gambling in that country.

Claudia Álvarez Troncoso explained that “Although it seems like 10 years that I have been in the Casino Management, I have only been a year and a half, but we have done too many things in such a short time, finding a direction that needed to strengthen all its processes and above all put many things in writing and adapt and align them not only with the laws that we currently have in the Dominican Republic but also with the best practices at an international level to take our direction and the country to that level”

Then, she highlighted that during the conference “we are going to quickly go over specific elements of the Dominican Republic of which you yourselves are witnesses and promoters of the growth of gambling and many of its innovations. Technological advances have also found us at a time in management where a supervisory focus and vision based on technology and with elements of innovation was necessary. This is what consumers demand and we have listened to them. “We have a team dedicated to that.”

The new regulatory framework
Regarding a key issue such as the regulation of games of chance in the Dominican Republic, the official explained that "I have been in communication with peers from other countries that we saw have similar problems in games of chance and the economy and we want to project ourselves into their regulations and see how We can get the best out of Chile, Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Panama and even Spain and other countries because we have seen that there is a need to establish a much more solid regulatory framework that is truly effective in the face of many risks that we have seen that the country faces. sector because we also have to manage it from the point of view of regulation, prevention of money laundering and also the inspection elements that we constantly carry out”

She also recalled that “Dominican operators know that since 2023 we have been issuing a series of circular resolutions that also come from the management aligned with this situation of reforms and updates in which the Ministry of Finance has been working and issued at the time. a standard contract for electronic lottery concessionaires, establishing a series of criteria that are equitable for all and we continue to work along those same lines.  Likewise, for what concerns the Casino Management, that also meant some new areas in a specific manner that we will determine a little later and a readjustment of the same and I can also tell you that they have been working on a law to regulate the sector because something that the sector has is that it is made up of many laws, we have been accumulating all those laws and regulations inherited from other institutions where games of chance were disaggregated. At the time, the Ministry of the Interior and police for the machines or what the Ministry of Sports is today for what are sports betting banks and others and as you know after Law 494-06 of 2006 everything was determined for the Ministry of Tax authorities"

In addition, she highlighted that many of the operators' complaints were heard to streamline and give more authority to the ad hoc committee.

The fight against money laundering
Another central point of the talk was the problem of money laundering, about which she mentioned that "After seven years of being the only competent authority within the framework of prevention of money laundering that did not have an administrative sanctioning regulation, we brought such regulations into the framework." of money laundering prevention, which was an outspoken mandate that we also needed to comply not only with the law but also at an international level for country evaluation.  In addition, in March of this year we released the resolution for online gambling, which is not new but is now very complete in technical aspects.”

In this sense, she explained that “we spent a good amount of time analyzing, reviewing and contrasting the legislation of others and the needs that we had to include and how we were going to manage this risk for online gambling knowing that it is undoubtedly a reality not only the future of a gambling sector if not it is already a reality and it is a great demand that we have, especially after the pandemic through electronic means.”   “In that sense, resolution 136-2024 has innovative elements, it talks about certification laboratories, responsible gaming and I can tell you that this week it will be put out to public consultation for the proposed resolution on responsible gaming that has been working for eight to ten months. “Casino Management”

Finally, she referred to the internationally recognized ISO standards and noted that “it is an honor to be able to come out with that resolution and it is the first time that the Dominican Republic is really going to have a resolution from the responsible gaming approach. We have also been working with the Ministry of Finance on an ISO certification process. As I told you at the beginning, we found a direction that needed to be strengthened in the processes, leaving them in writing, having records and so on, and this then leads us to strengthen these elements, especially integrity and transparency based on supervision, it already raises us to a international standard, specifically ISO 37001 and ISO 37301, which are anti-bribery, that is, to prevent, detect and address the issue of bribery, and for us that is very important.”