Four Divine Beasts

How to play Four Divine Beasts

The Ministry of Finance of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has reaffirmed it holds sole authority to oversee the nation’s gambling sector.

In a press release dated 27 August, the DRC’s Ministry of Finance reminded gambling operators that Ordinance No. 25/293 formally transferred responsibility for regulating the sector from the Ministry of Sports and Leisure to its own remit.

In the Ministry of Finance’s view, this ended “any institutional ambiguity” over who should oversee the DRC’s gambling industry.

How to play Four Divine Beasts

The distinction matters for crypto businesses. The filing shows regulatory work is moving forward, but exchanges and other market participants cannot yet consider it a set of rules they must adhere to. 

The CFTC’s move also comes as other US regulators continue to craft their own crypto policies. The agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) jointly issued an interpretation in March on how certain crypto assets would be treated under federal securities laws. 

A lot of bigger questions remain without the CLARITY Act. The bill aimed to establish a federal framework for digital commodities and delineate the roles of the SEC and the CFTC. 

How to play Four Divine Beasts

If it strikes a more reasonable balance that encourages economic development, “you will see the world’s best casino operators submit proposals”, he says. The government, he adds, must show it is prepared to give developers enough room to manage the risks of committing billions of dollars in capital.

Klebanow remains cautious about the commercial prospects of Japan’s emerging IR market, particularly given the tight limits on gaming capacity. With only five casinos ultimately envisaged, he argues that the number of gaming machines and tables will be modest relative to Japan’s population, making it “very safe to assume” that gambling will be socially and physically contained.

The bigger question, therefore, is whether such constraints will leave operators enough capacity to generate the returns needed to justify their investment.