Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall has raised serious concerns that some citizens are squandering their government cash grants on gambling, expressing alarm at what he described as a significant social problem nationwide.
Speaking during his programme “Issues in the News” on Tuesday evening, Nandlall stressed that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government is committed to tackling gambling addiction and its destructive effects on families and communities.
“People are gambling out the cash grant. They receive the cash grant and they gone straight to the gambling shops, blow it out. I have photographs of persons going there with the cash grant money in their hands. That is not why the government is giving cash grants. School children cash grants as well as the 100,000 cash grants,” Nandlall lamented.
The Attorney General’s remarks highlight growing concerns about how social assistance programmes are being diverted away from their intended purpose of improving citizens’ livelihoods.
Last year, President Dr Irfaan Ali announced that the government would be rolling out a series of national consultations to address gambling and drug abuse, along with the impact of social media on young children. The President had indicated he received numerous concerns from families, religious leaders, and community advocates about gambling’s destructive effects, which have eroded savings, imposed financial hardships, strained relationships, and fuelled harmful social consequences.
“We’ll consult widely with all stakeholders and those who regulate. Arising out of these deliberations, we will incorporate concrete measures in the 2026 budget to confront and curtail this scourge,” President Ali had stated.
Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo has also expressed deep concern about gambling addiction. During a press conference last year, he noted that the problem cuts across all categories of society, occurring even in workplaces and construction sites.
“At construction sites, people sit at the top of a seven-storey building, and they’re placing a bet on their phone. [It’s] an addiction, so…it’s really, really affecting a lot of people,” Jagdeo had said.
Once limited to guests of hotel-based casinos, gambling has proliferated across Guyana with hundreds of betting shops in communities and the emergence of online mobile gambling apps, quickly creating a major social problem across the country.
In October 2025, Vice President Jagdeo indicated that the government would tighten regulations and impose higher taxes on online gambling following increasing complaints of breadwinners losing income needed for family care.
“We have already made it clear that this gambling that has blossomed and created a series of negative problems for our communities, breaking up families, creating hardship for a lot of single parents, mothers especially, where people utilise the money that they have, the income, to all day be online gambling,” Jagdeo had stated.
Nandlall revealed on Tuesday that work has already commenced to address the gambling problem, indicating that concrete measures are being developed to combat the growing social crisis.
