These "bancas" are not banks

In every small town and on most big city streets, there are small stores with big signs indicating that they are “bancas”.

These are betting shops. Most are linked to the national lottery and also offer bets on the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, etc.

They're usually one-by-two-meter tin shacks, with little more than a computer and a bar stool for the cashier.

But regulatory oversight of the gambling sector has come under scrutiny: in 2021, the company operating the national lottery was found to have falsified $8.5 million in ticket sales. The investigation revealed numerous cases of fraud and criminality in the Dominican lottery bank's network of 100,000 points of sale, used to falsify ticket sales and evade taxes.