The future of the industry

East Timor will maintain zero tolerance for gambling.

The regulatory focus will shift to technological control: proactive blocking of domains and applications, cooperation with payment services and telecom operators, enhanced eKYC/AML and work against crypto and P2P schemes.

Spot exceptions are possible for charity raffles under strict conditions, but commercial casinos and online operators are not planned.

Development strategy - tourism without casinos (nature, diving, culture), local SMEs and employment in service industries, plus education and prevention of harm from illegal online.

Key risks - leakage of demand abroad and online fraud; the answer is interagency coordination and tougher sanctions.