Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo says Gov­ern­ment will soon im­ple­ment stiffer penal­ties for il­le­gal gam­bling, in an at­tempt to stop the leak­age of bil­lions in rev­enue.

The an­nounce­ment came dur­ing Tan­coo's 2026 Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion yes­ter­day.

Tan­coo re­vealed that un­der­ground bet­ting schemes, in­clud­ing 'whe whe' op­er­a­tors and il­le­gal gam­ing hous­es, were cost­ing the State. He said the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board (NL­CB) earns al­most $3 bil­lion an­nu­al­ly but those prof­its were be­ing erod­ed by an il­le­gal par­al­lel mar­ket worth an es­ti­mat­ed $9 bil­lion.

“Il­le­gal lot­ter­ies con­tin­ue to im­pair the NL­CB’s prof­it mar­gins. These il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties al­so de­prive the Gov­ern­ment of in­come tax, cor­po­ra­tion tax, wind­fall tax and di­rect rev­enues from NL­CB’s ser­vices,” he said.

Tan­coo ex­plained that the il­le­gal op­er­a­tions were of­ten linked to mon­ey laun­der­ing, black mar­ket trad­ing and hu­man traf­fick­ing.

He said the Gov­ern­ment plans to amend the Gam­bling and Bet­ting Act to raise fines and in­tro­duce new of­fences tar­get­ing mod­ern on­line and re­ceipt-based bet­ting schemes.

He pro­posed a fine of $250,000 and im­pris­on­ment for three years, or on in­dict­ment, a fine of $3 mil­lion and im­pris­on­ment for sev­en years for of­fences un­der the act.

The min­istry will al­so cre­ate a new crim­i­nal of­fence un­der the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Act to em­pow­er the NL­CB to as­sist po­lice with ev­i­dence to take down unau­tho­rised agents.

This was among a swath of ini­tia­tives Tan­coo an­nounced in yes­ter­day's $59 bil­lion Bud­get.

OTH­ER 2026 BUD­GET HIGH­LIGHTS

* UWI Debe Cam­pus will be op­er­a­tionalised for Law, Foren­sics, IT and AI train­ing.

* ANR Robin­son Air­port to op­er­a­tionalised by the sec­ond quar­ter of Fis­cal 2026.

* Port-of-Spain Cen­tral Block to be op­er­a­tionalised by March 2026.

* Cou­va Med­ical and Mul­ti-Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty will fi­nal­ly open, fo­cus­ing on chil­dren’s health; San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal to be com­mis­sioned this fis­cal year.

* Op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle Ac­ci­dent Fund - first ap­proved in 2015 but nev­er en­act­ed- which will pro­vide re­lief to vic­tims of unin­sured dri­vers.

* Five hun­dred new prison of­fi­cers are be­ing re­cruit­ed. Fa­cil­i­ties are re­ceiv­ing san­i­ta­tion, trans­port, and se­cu­ri­ty up­grades, in­clud­ing an­ti-drone tech and cell-jam­mers.

* The 268-year-old Port-of-Spain Prison is be­ing de­com­mis­sioned, re­placed by a mod­ern cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ty fo­cused on re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.

* Jobs across var­i­ous fields, in­clud­ing BIR pro­mo­tions of in­di­vid­u­als cur­rent­ly act­ing in key roles.

* Ne­go­ti­a­tions with Trinidad Steel Com­pa­ny for a new gas con­tract will restart steel pro­duc­tion, cre­at­ing jobs and re­viv­ing ex­ports.

* Every cit­i­zen will soon re­ceive a se­cure dig­i­tal ID for sin­gle-lo­gin ac­cess to gov­ern­ment por­tals—al­low­ing tax­es, li­cences, and busi­ness reg­is­tra­tions to be com­plet­ed on­line.

* PTSC will in­tro­duce elec­tric bus­es un­der a leas­ing pi­lot of 30 units by mid-2026 and ex­pand routes through a PPP with maxi-taxi op­er­a­tors to en­sure rur­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty.

* Pro­pos­al for re­tirees re­moved from the UNIMED Group Health Plan to be re­in­stat­ed to a plan

* 20,000 af­ford­able homes with­in two years through PPPs and in­no­v­a­tive de­signs, First-Time Home­own­er Grants, low-in­ter­est loans for young fam­i­lies, and re­vival of the Land-for-the-Land­less Pro­gramme.

* T&T on course to be re­moved in Feb­ru­ary 2026 from the Eu­ro­pean Union’s list of non-co­op­er­a­tive ju­ris­dic­tions for tax pur­pos­es with two cri­te­ria to be met be­fore re­moval.

* Launch of a Na­tion­al Reg­istry of Ex­porters and a pa­tri­ot­ic “Buy Lo­cal, Build Trin­ba­go” cam­paign to keep wealth at home.

* Par­tial-scope agree­ments are be­ing ad­vanced with In­dia and West Africa.

* 18,000 lap­tops be­ing dis­trib­uted to Form One stu­dents.

* Roads, bridges, drainage plans

* Ex­port growth in fine-flavour co­coa, Moru­ga pep­pers, and aqua­cul­ture, dou­bling agro-ex­ports by 2028.

* Port Au­thor­i­ty will pro­cure a third ship-to-shore crane and re­fur­bish the Cari­com Wharf to boost re­gion­al trade.

* Team chaired by the Prime Min­is­ter to pro­vide over­sight and per­for­mance man­age­ment for the Gov­ern­ment - re­view, ap­prove, and mon­i­tor all ma­jor Bud­get items, such as min­is­te­r­i­al ex­pen­di­ture, projects, and in­vest­ment de­ci­sions, across all min­istries at the sole dis­cre­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter.

* In­stalling a ma­jor­i­ty of di­rec­tors at Re­pub­lic Bank Lim­it­ed with To­ba­go rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Re­pub­lic, Ex­im and FCB boards.

* Trans­fer pric­ing re­form leg­is­la­tion for multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions to pay their fair share of tax­es.