Supervisory Board

About Us

Independent oversight, placed at arm's length from day-to-day operations.

A Supervisory Board is the body that oversees the strategic direction and performance of the Gambling Authority itself — without being involved in individual licensing, supervision or enforcement decisions. It sits above day-to-day operations by design: reviewing strategy and budgets, holding leadership to account, and safeguarding the Authority's independence and integrity, rather than directing its casework.

This page is intended to eventually show who serves on the Supervisory Board and how it operates. Until the Board has been formally established and its members appointed, this page sets out the background and the reasoning behind why a Supervisory Board — placed at arm's length from daily operations — matters in the first place.

Strategic Oversight, at Arm's Length

A Supervisory Board typically reviews strategy, approves budgets, and monitors the overall performance of a regulator — without directing individual licensing, supervision or enforcement decisions. That separation is deliberate: it lets the Board hold the organisation to account for how well it performs its mandate, while leaving day-to-day regulatory casework to the Authority's own leadership and staff, insulated from outside influence.

● Reviews strategy, budgets and overall organisational performance
● Does not intervene in individual licensing, supervision or enforcement cases
● Holds leadership accountable for how the mandate is carried out

Independence and Integrity by Design

The value of a Supervisory Board depends entirely on its own independence and integrity. Members are generally expected to bring relevant expertise — in regulation, finance, law or governance — while being free of conflicts of interest with the sector they oversee. Integrity is not only something the Gambling Authority asks of the operators it regulates; it applies with equal force to how the Authority itself is governed.

● Draws on relevant expertise in regulation, finance, law and governance
● Members are expected to be free of conflicts of interest with the gambling sector
● Applies the same standard of integrity the Authority expects of licence holders

Accountability to the Public Mandate

An independent regulator still answers to someone. A Supervisory Board typically provides that accountability — reviewing annual performance and financial statements, and reporting onward to the responsible Minister or Parliament — without that accountability relationship being used to influence individual regulatory decisions. This is what allows a regulator to be independent in its casework while still remaining answerable for its overall stewardship of a public mandate.

● Reviews annual performance and financial statements
● Provides a formal reporting line to the responsible Minister and Parliament
● Separates public accountability from influence over individual regulatory decisions

Why an Arm's-Length Board Matters

A Documented, Named Risk

Political interference in individual regulatory decisions has been identified as one of the most serious governance risks facing a new regulator anywhere. An arm's-length Supervisory Board, combined with the Authority's own independent legal status, is a direct, structural response to that risk — not a hypothetical safeguard.

A Consistent Recurring Theme

Across decades of studies and audits of Sint Maarten's gambling sector, one theme repeats: oversight needs to be removed from direct political influence and fragmented ministerial control. An independent Supervisory Board is one of the structural building blocks that responds directly to that recurring finding.

Integrity Starts at the Top

Integrity is one of the Gambling Authority's core values — and it has to apply to the Authority itself, not only to the operators it licenses. A credible, independent Supervisory Board is how that value is made structural rather than aspirational.