Online Gaming Agents call

The president of the Online Gaming Agents Association of Trinidad and Tobago (OGAATT), Dean Persad, is raising serious concerns over what he describes as years of financial mismanagement within the country’s online gaming sector.

He has accused the former board of the National Lotteries Control Board (NLCB) of unfairly penalising agents and arbitrarily shutting down gaming terminals, a move he said is costing the State approximately $900,000 in lost revenue every week.

Now, the association is seeking the attention of the newly appointed board.

“We’ve been pleading for years. Instead of listening, they punished agents who were trying to be compliant. It was pure wickedness,” Persad told Guardian Media.

He said 36 gaming machines remain inactive, some for close to a year, and each machine typically generates $25,000 weekly for the NLCB after commissions and costs are removed.

“When you suppress 36 machines, you’re losing $25,000 per week, per machine. That’s $900,000 weekly. In one month, you make back the $2 million they claim agents owe. That don’t make sense at all.”

Persad insisted most agents are not delinquent but are victims of machine errors, theft, and system failures beyond their control.

“Some of these agents were robbed. Some had malfunctioning machines giving the wrong figures. And they knew the machines were bad. They held meetings and couldn’t solve the problems—but still punished us.”

He pointed to outdated technology being used by the NLCB.

“These machines are over two decades old. They were built for eight functions and are now forced to do 50. The system was bound to fail.”

He also revealed that NLCB has recently begun replacing these malfunctioning terminals, an admission, he said, that the problems were long known but ignored.

“Now they’re changing terminals, because they knew about the malfunctioning of the previous ones. They hurriedly started doing this before the appointment of the new board, just to make themselves look good,” Persad said.

The outgoing NLCB board, he said, not only ignored agents’ concerns but escalated pressure by raising fees and setting arbitrary sales limits.

Persad also blasted the NLCB’s handling of night deposits, alleging that delayed bank processing—and in some cases, lost deposits—led to wrongful suppression of agents’ terminals.

Newly appointed NLCB Chairman Ken Emrith, when contacted by Guardian Media, confirmed that he is expected to meet with all stakeholders, including the Online Gaming Agents Association of Trinidad and Tobago , in the coming weeks.