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East Timor (Timor-Leste) has taken a major step toward launching a regulated, foreign-facing online gambling market after issuing its first concession to a company linked to the Philippines, Cambodia and Nigeria.

Vice Prime Minister Francisco Kalbuadi Lay on Friday (April 11) signed a concession contract with Golden River Universe, whose parent company Grand Dragon Lotaria operates in the Cambodian and Nigerian lottery markets under the Grand Dragon Lottery and GDLotto brands.

The agreement follows “eight months of regulatory collaboration with the Inspectorate General of Gaming (IGJ) to establish a secure, transparent, and globally compliant offshore gaming framework”, according to a company statement published by state-run news agency Tatoli.

Golden River Universe will fall under the “full regulatory oversight” of the IGJ, “prioritising compliance, digital infrastructure integrity, and responsible governance”, the statement said.

“The concession positions Timor-Leste as a rising hub in the international iGaming sector, unlocking new avenues for investment, job creation and innovation.”

Golden River Universe CEO Harry Ng said his company’s licence is a “strategic tool for national transformation” and a facilitator of economic progress for the young Southeast Asian state.

Ng said Grand Dragon Lotaria will relocate its research and development teams and customer experience and global support crews from Cambodia and the Philippines to East Timor in order to “serve as a model for international operators by demonstrating [East Timor’s] readiness to support world-class gaming infrastructure and services".

“We are deeply honoured by the trust placed in us and are ready to transform this vision into real progress for Timor-Leste,” Ng said.

“Timor-Leste is taking a bold step toward positioning itself as the gateway to Asia’s offshore gaming market,” he said, adding that Golden River Universe’s “mission” is to turn the country into “Asia’s Malta” for foreign-facing online gambling.

Golden River Universe operations are based in Oecusse, an 814 square kilometre coastal enclave of East Timor, otherwise surrounded by Indonesian territory, some 60km west of the main East Timor-Indonesia border.

In August 2024, Golden River Universe and Grand Dragon Lotaria signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Rogério Lobato, the president of the Special Administrative Region of Oe-Cusse Ambeno (RAEOA), an economic development zone created only the previous January.

As part of the MoU, Golden River Universe will convert an Oecusse hotel into a “centralised offshore gaming operation hub” staffed by up to 1,000 “foreign employees”, according to a company statement last August.

Ng said at the time that Golden River Universe will invest more than $100m over ten years into the centre.

Golden River Universe’s responsibilities now also include serving as ambassadors for the RAEOA at gambling industry and other events, and to attract investment, presumably including rival licensees.

Friday’s statement reinforced this, noting that Golden River Universe and the IGJ will represent Timor-Leste at SiGMA Asia in Manila in early June.

The RAEOA includes the Oecusse Digital Centre, which has been declared a free trade zone to support digital and gaming operations, in part via its blockchain-based token.

Lobato, a former freedom fighter in the 1970s who co-founded the East Timorese government, was the defence and interior minister before being jailed amid civil unrest and law-and-order crisis in the mid-2000s.

Details of Golden River Universe’s beneficial ownership remain murky. Parent company Grand Dragon Lotaria director José Januario Reis “Noki” is also CEO of key Timorese internet service provider Metrolink.

Golden River Universe is also linked to Cambodian border casino operations through Grand Dragon Lotaria.

The parent company runs live lottery draws from the Grand Dragon Resorts casino hotel, near the Vietnamese border in Kandal Province, south of Phnom Penh.

The regulatory structure for online gambling and compliance practices in East Timor also remains unclear.

While visiting East Timor last October, the Philippine justice minister warned President José Ramos-Horta of serious danger if the fellow majority Catholic nation adopted a foreign-facing online gambling model similar to the Philippine POGO model that had just been banned.

Jesus Crispin Remulla told Ramos-Horta that migrating POGO interests, including organised crime elements, could increase “crime, regulatory evasion, and potential threats to public safety”.

The East Timorese response to these warnings was muted.

Meanwhile, Golden River Universe officials have dubbed their Oecusse operation a “TOGOS [Timor Offshore Gaming Operators] hub”, located at TOGOS Park, described as “Asia’s next offshore gaming district”, with plans for a TOGOS City, according to the company's website.