Opening a Banca de Loteria

[callado4]

Hi everybody, this is my first post on this forum. A little bit about myself - I am an American Citizen with Dominican-born parents (who now spend more time in the Dominican Republic). I am fairly fluent in Spanish and I travel to the D.R. about once or twice a year.

Now on to my question. I have a few cousins who work in different Bancas over there and after speaking to one of them, I found out that they can make a decent amount of money. I would really like to open a small Banca and possibly expand to more operations as time goes on. Does anybody here know what I would have to do to open one up (like permits, licenses, etc.)? How much investment it would possibly require? I am primarily interested in opening one up in the Santiago area, although I know that finding a good location could prove to be difficult.

Thanks,

Jose...

 

[Tallman1680]

Jose mi amigo, my uncle in Santo Domingo runs a banca and told me that to open one up you need no less than a million pesos ($31,000 USD), that the goverment now wants them to be apart from one another a fair amount of meters and the permits are NOT easy to get.

 

[suarezn]

What I know from having inquired a bit into this a while back. The market is pretty saturated to begin with. In my hometown there are tons of them sometimes less than a kilometer apart. I don't believe you need that much money to open one, but you do need to buy computers, software, etc. and have enough money in case someone hits it big to pay up (This may be where the million pesos comes in).

You have to get permits from the government if you want to do it legit. You can open your own without any permits which is also OK, but you'll be harassed by the cops and will have to pay them up all the time. The permits can take a while to get if you don't have the right contacts (The DR is all about contacts).

Make sure you have good security as these places are huge targets for robberies.

Other than that if you get a good location it can be a gold mine. There are some people from my hometown who own a lot of them around the country and they are raking in big, big bucks...I'm talking about million+ of USD each year.

 

[Tallman1680]

What I know from having inquired a bit into this a while back. The market is pretty saturated to begin with. In my hometown there are tons of them sometimes less than a kilometer apart. I don't believe you need that much money to open one, but you do need to buy computers, software, etc. and have enough money in case someone hits it big to pay up (This may be where the million pesos comes in).

You have to get permits from the government if you want to do it legit. You can open your own without any permits which is also OK, but you'll be harassed by the cops and will have to pay them up all the time. The permits can take a while to get if you don't have the right contacts (The DR is all about contacts).

Make sure you have good security as these places are huge targets for robberies.

Other than that if you get a good location it can be a gold mine. There are some people from my hometown who own a lot of them around the country and they are raking in big, big bucks...I'm talking about million+ of USD each year.

When someone cames and play a lot of money in a number, all you do is send someone over another banca to play the same amount, so if you get hit, you hit someone else and never lose that money.

 

[Susanna123]

I'm traveling to Santo Domingo over winter break to conduct research on lottery practices. The research will ultimately be used to look at the use of lottery incentives to promote savings (lottery linked deposits) but right now I'm just trying to understand the system (how it's run, who owns the lotteries, how much do they make, why do people play, how often etc).

Any advice would be much appreciated!!

Thanks!

 

[VicDamone]

Susanna,

Please update me on your research or let me know if you need help. I travel to the Dominican Republic twice/month and have been wondering about the Banca's myself. Feel free to post here or via PM.

Thanks

 

[rubio_higuey]

Depends if you want to go alone or be "affiliate" of "consorcio".

If you go alone, you need big money to get permits. if you affiliate, you take about 25% cut of what the people play, and you are never "in" for possibly losing your own money. You only need to pay an affiliate license, which is about 150.000 pesos, and the consorcio helps you out with 1/3 of that .... and I think you also pay a franchise fee of like 5% of the cobros, so it leaves you 20% netto .... You never lose, because the "consorcio" is responsible for the payment of winning tickets ... Also, the "consorcio" gives you computer equipment and wireless link with Internet for free...

There are many "illegal" bancas because it's more profitable for the owners of banca to just pay 500 or 1000 pesos monthly to Loteria nacional inspectors ... also, I heard, that there are no new permits being issued right now ... and yes, you also need to be "x" meters apart from the next "banca" ... in urban areas I think it's 1 or 2 blocks distance required.

P.S. I know this because I was investigating banca stuff for a friend of mine, and I talked to a banca owner next door. All the stuff is from the first hand.
P.S.2. His banca is illegal and has been so for the past 2 years.
P.S.3. this is not an invitation to do things illegally. The information posted is for educational purposes only and I have never implied you should undertake anything posted in this post.
P.S.4 Now I see I was replying to a two-years-old thread.... never mind... educational purposes...

 

[El Rey de Mangu]

Opinion from the Plantain Fields:

This business does not attract the most honest and educated of client?le. Many of these operations are subject to robberies, etc. The "sport banca" varieties are even worse.

However, the sin business does tend to bring in cash.