(AsiaGameHub) –   As iGaming begins to flourish in Puerto Rico, ensuring the sustainability of its operations will be crucial, not only for the online sector but also for the market’s established land-based casinos.

Juan Carlos Santaella Marchán, Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Gaming Commission, recently spoke with SBC Noticias about the country’s expanding online gaming sector and the primary challenges the Commission faces in ensuring this vertical can achieve long-term balance with its brick-and-mortar counterparts.

While Marchán acknowledged the Puerto Rican government’s success in integrating gaming under a unified regulatory framework, he identified the biggest challenge as preventing digital growth from undermining the land-based gaming sector.

The Executive Director explained: “Physical casinos not only generate tax revenue that benefits tourism and the University of Puerto Rico, but also create jobs and support the hotel, entertainment, and broader economic sectors.

“The digital environment, by nature, operates with leaner structures and more aggressive commercial strategies. Without proper balance, there could be a rapid migration of consumers toward online platforms with less local economic impact.”

“Our regulatory market has an important advantage: we are not starting from scratch.”

Puerto Rico Gaming Commission Executive Director Juan Carlos Santaella Marchán

Marchán stated that the sustainability of the country’s gaming model will depend on continuous and effective real-time technological oversight, promoting legality through incentives, protecting land-based casinos as key tourism and economic drivers, strengthening responsible gaming and problem gambling prevention programs, and rapidly adapting regulations to new technologies, payment methods, and digital products.

“Our regulatory market has an important advantage: we are not starting from scratch,” Marchán further noted.

“We have over 75 years of casino tradition, a century-old horse racing industry, a modern legal framework, and regulatory proximity to the Anglo-Saxon model. However, the next level of maturity will be proving that the hybrid system can grow without one side destroying the other. That is where the true success of our jurisdiction’s regulatory model will be defined.”

At SBC Summit Americas, Marchán is scheduled to participate in the ‘Regulator Rumble: The Future of LatAm’ panel, where he will discuss why a ‘land-based anchor’ model, in a continent rapidly embracing digitalization, can shield markets from volatility.

Marchán elaborated on how this particular gaming model has helped safeguard Puerto Rico against market fluctuations.

The Executive Director commented: “Market size and regulatory quality do not necessarily advance at the same pace. Some jurisdictions achieve massive digital volumes very quickly, but later face integrity problems, tax evasion, illegal operators, and political pressure to tighten regulations after the market has already experienced explosive growth.

“Our position is that regulatory stability has economic value in itself. An ecosystem where operators must maintain a physical presence, local infrastructure, and real ties to the jurisdiction creates a less speculative and more trustworthy market against aggressive expansion cycles.

“That may result in slower growth, but it also reduces volatility and strengthens credibility. During the panel, we will argue that regulatory success should not be measured solely by projected market size, but by how much of that growth remains formalized, supervised, and protected against recurring risks.”