The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) announced that a dozen people have been arrested for involvement in illegal online gaming operations. According to the Philippine regulator, the operation was carried out on February 16 in Parañaque City.

A total of 12 people were arrested in the operation which was carried out by the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO), the Anti-Cybercrime Group of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the PAGCOR monitoring team.

Alejandro Tengco, PAGCOR’s chief executive officer and chair, commented on the matter, saying that the authorities searched a den and caught suspects red-handed while operating the illegal gambling platform The Big Bet (tbb888.com). According to Tengco, The Big Bet offered illegal gambling products, such as slot machines, live casino products and esports bets, among others. 

In addition to arresting twelve people, the raiders also seized eleven computer sets, 21 mobile phones, 2 ipads, 5 laptops and multiple flash drives.

PAGCOR Wants to Eliminate Illegal Competition 

According to PAGCOR’s senior vice president for security and monitoring cluster, Raul Villanueva, the seized devices confirmed the group’s involvement in the operation of illegal online gambling. Villanueva also confirmed that cases will be filed against the suspects before the Parañaque Regional Trial Court.

Villanueva further addressed the matter, saying that the operation was a part of the Philippine authorities’ unified efforts to crack down on illegal gambling activities. He said that the regulator vows to continue working together with law enforcement authorities such as the PNP and the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency to put a stop to such operations.

We are also working closely with the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center under the Department of Information and Communications Technology because we have a lot more targets under surveillance.

Raul Villanueva, senior vice president for security and monitoring cluster, PAGCOR

Villanueva asked the public to stop interacting with and spending money on such illegal platforms and said that, sadly, most of the victims of such illegal sites are Filipino players. He said that consistent monitoring and reporting is needed in order to protect bettors and ensure that revenues from regulated gaming are channeled back to the government.

The SVP concluded that there used to be close to 5,000 illegal online gaming websites operating in the Philippines. Luckily, most of these have already been blocked, he added.

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PAGCOR, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation, is undergoing a significant transformation, with plans to shift its focus entirely to regulatory functions by 2025. 

PAGCOR Commits to Employee Security Amid Regulatory Transition

At a recent event where Alejandro H. Tengco was a keynote speaker, he elaborated that the motivation behind the decision to transition to a purely regulatory role lies in PAGCOR’s dedication to equalizing opportunities and securing the future growth and sustainability of all gaming industry participants. This strategic move comes on the heels of PAGCOR’s earlier announcement to launch its online casino platform, Casino.Filipino.com, in the first quarter of 2024.

While the move toward regulation is aimed at benefiting the industry as a whole, it may have implications for some employees within the gaming sector. To address potential job displacement, especially in PAGCOR-operated casinos, the agency is actively formulating plans to mitigate these impacts.

Tengco emphasized that PAGCOR values its employees as its greatest asset and has been conducting town hall meetings across the country to reassure them. He stressed that there is no need to worry, as measures are in place to minimize if not entirely avoid, personnel displacement.

PAGCOR Aims to Achieve Gold Standard in Asian Gaming Through Regulation

In addition to focusing on its regulatory role, PAGCOR is making essential changes to its corporate structure, business processes, and procedures to enhance its responsiveness and competitiveness. These changes include consolidating into a single corporate office to streamline coordination and efficiency.

PAGCOR’s move towards privatization is expected to extend to its gambling operations, including the Casino Filipino chain of casinos that currently operates in eight locations across the Philippines. The agency’s commitment to regulatory oversight remains a priority, with the goal of ensuring the continued integrity and growth of the gaming industry in the region.

PAGCOR also initiated an extensive upgrade program for its self-operated casinos ahead of privatization. PAGCOR Chairman Alejandro H. Tengco unveiled three key initiatives, including modernizing its infrastructure, upgrading Electronic Gaming Machines (EGMs), and emphasizing the benefits of privatization to enhance the corporation’s competitiveness and regulatory capabilities.

Tengco expressed confidence in PAGCOR’s potential to become a gold standard in the Asian gaming scene as it shifts its focus to regulation. This transformation coincides with recent efforts to establish new rules for offshore gambling in the Philippines, aimed at addressing illegal offshore activities within the country.

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The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) has released an explicit public statement to warn people against a growing number of illicit online gaming websites which operate without licensing and oversight.

These websites are displaying the PAGCOR logo but they only do that to feign authenticity; the government regulator insists that they have never been approved or licensed by the authorities.

The respective PAGCOR logo has been found on multiple online casinos that upon verification have been confirmed to be lacking a valid license from the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation.

The National Police in the Philippines is currently investigating this matter, with support from the Department of Information and Communication Technology and the National Bureau of Investigation.

Alejandro Tengco, the Chairman and CEO of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation, reassured the public that the authorities have so far been able to shut down most of the illicit online gambling websites. However, he warned that some of these entities that are operating illegally can create new online gaming websites “almost immediately.” Tengco has asked the public to cooperate and be vigilant to “help us weed out these scammers.”

Further Steps Considered

Moreover, Alejandro Tengco added that PAGCOR is working “in coordination with the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC)” to monitor illegal online casinos that have not yet been blocked or taken down.

“Another option is to create a landing site to redirect bettors to a website that will warn them about illegal sites that they are accessing,” the PAGCOR Chairman explained. The government-owned corporation also announced that it has begun working on contacting payment providers and asking them to stop allowing payments toward these illegal online gambling websites.

Such fake online casinos can be a part of financial scams or might even be stealing personal information from unsuspecting users, so consumers must be careful and double check the authenticity of such outlets.

In fact, PAGCOR urged the public to go through the official list of licensed operators on the official government website and see whether a certain operator is on the approved list or not. The presence of the PAGCOR logo on a website is not enough to demonstrate that an online casino is legit.

Source: “PAGCOR warns vs fake online gaming sites“. PAGCOR. September 12, 2023.

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The regulator has confirmed its intention to roll out a dedicated Casino Filipino brand that will be accessible globally starting in 2024 and provide audiences with access to online casino, sports betting, and live casino games.

PAGCOR to Break Ground with Online Casino of Its Own

The new online property is expected to roll out in the first quarter of the coming year and leverage innovative tech, such as virtual reality to make players like they are visiting a physical retail experience and guaranteeing an unmatched immersive experience.

“It will allow players to interact with the digital counterparts of traditional casino games,” said PAGCOR chairman and CEO Alejandro Tengco, who outlined the project on Thursday. The regulatory chief is confident that the upcoming brand will transcend the physical boundaries of the experience and allow players from all over the world to interact with brand-new casino environments that are unmatched by competitors.

Meanwhile, PAGCOR is confident that the regulator’s online presence will lead to increased benefits for the watchdog, including more revenue, stronger market expansion, and better customer engagement. Meanwhile, PAGCOR also plans to modernize its land-based slot offering, with Tengco confirming that the regulator is in talks with various manufacturers to bring in more than 3,500 new units.

“We have already taken the preliminary steps and entered into negotiations with different manufacturers for the modernization of our slot machines,” Tengco elaborated. The regulator is also going to update its Casino Management System.

Updating PAGCOR’s Existing Casinos and Reporting

The update of the system would allow PAGCOR to improve its operational efficiency of casinos and lead to better real-time reporting and analytics that can help strengthen strategic decisions that finetune compliance and optimize results across the board, Tengco concluded.

The launch of an official online casino brand backed by a regulator-cum-operator is a fairly new idea and it’s yet unclear how the global footprint of the operator would unfold as it would need to secure the appropriate licenses to operate in various jurisdictions.

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PAGCOR has clarified that the matter concerned not so much gambling as much as it did job postings and advertisements promising excellent salaries and working conditions. According to the regulator, those ads were the work of “unscrupulous groups” involved in human-trafficking and crypto scams.

Beware of Fake POGO Job Postings, Says PAGCOR

POGOs have been causing a lot of stir in Asia, and specifically those that have been running their operations illegally in the region. Unlawful POGOs have been attracting local and foreign nationals with the promise of tidy salaries, with those arriving only to find themselves put in squalor and exploitative working conditions.

Workers attempting to leave have been beaten and placed in captivity, PAGCOR warned, citing years of reports about the issues. However, PAGCOR is now doubling down on its efforts to inform the public and keep job-seekers from falling prey to such predatory practices. For the most part, the offers that are posted concern Customer Service Representative positions that have to do with crypto trading.

The ads run by the criminal offer a high basic salary along with bonuses. However, many of these ads are proving bogus and the work of human-trafficking rings, organized criminal groups, and scammers. PAGCOR has urged the public to always make sure that a POGO that is advertising jobs is part of the Offshore Gaming Licensees and Service Providers list.

This is a list of entities that are authorized to offer gambling legally in the country and are the only ones that can be posting job offerings for similar positions. This renewed regulatory zeal comes in the wake of enforcement action that saw a POGO provider operating in Sun Valley Clark had its license suspended.

The country has also been grappling with another matter, which is the appearance of a fake website that “stole” the name of a US history awareness project and used it to beguile unwitting citizens into illegal gambling.

PAGCOR has been toughening its tone on gambling operations. The regulator explicitly warned POGOs to not sub-license to third parties, as that would breach their own licensing conditions and lead to enforcement action.

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The latest regulatory move sees the national watchdog, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR), prepared to issue show-cause orders and fines up to $50,000 to any POGO that has let third-party run operations under its own license. The news was first reported by Rappler, a media outlet that cited officials.

PAGCOR Tightens the Noose on POGOs

PAGCOR assistant VP for compliance Jessa Fernandez and Clark Development Corporation CEO Agnes Devanadera said that the new measure is because of a recent incident involving a POGO service provider that had its license revoked. The POGO in question was operating out of Sun Valley Clark and it was found to be in numerous breaches of existing law, although none specified the sub-licensure of its own license as one of the offenses.

PAGCOR has gone after CGC Technologies as a response to an investigation that Sun Valley Clark had been turned into a gaming hub where criminals would go to conduct unlawful business and set up their bases for schemes and frauds involving cryptocurrencies and human trafficking. However, the crackdown on Sun Valley Clark is related to the overall decision to take a harsher stance on third-party sublicensing by POGOs.

The Clark County Security Council spoke on Friday confirming that this issue has allowed criminals to set up shop in the jurisdiction and conduct business out of there, using POGO licenses as a cover. This will now be addressed with the full force of the law. POGOs have long been criticized for their questionable practices and accused of being conduits of social ills and crime.

Crime Bred Out of Unlawful POGOs

Most of this crime has targeted overseas customers, but in the meantime, many of the operators have been involved in human trafficking as they often attract workers from other countries in Asia and then hold them in captivity, offering nominal pay and substance. This form of modern slavery has had a damaging impact on the Philippines’ reputation and it has further exacerbated relationships with its neighbors, notably China.

PAGCOR has also recently responded and issued a public reprimand to a website that had hijacked a domain name of historic significance in the United States to beguile unwitting consumers into gambling with the illegal, unregistered, and in all likelihood – fraudulent gambling operator.

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The Finance Undersecretary of the Philippines has announced that the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) is expected to proceed with the sale of its self-operated casinos within the next two years.

This timeline was requested by PAGCOR’s chairman, Alejandro H. Tengco, to ensure proper consideration for any employees that might be affected by the move towards privatization.

Under PAGCOR’s watch, the Philippine government owns nine fully fledged Casino Filipino venues with 34 satellite casinos operating in malls and hotels.

The primary value of this privatization effort lies in the licenses held by PAGCOR, as the operator leases all of its casino properties.

While the idea of privatizing PAGCOR’s casinos has been discussed in the past, it appears that this time the organization is genuinely committed to the sale.

Additionally, PAGCOR aims to maximize the value of the casinos within the given timeline, as stated by the Finance Undersecretary.

Furthermore, the privatization effort aligns with the country’s broader objective of disposing of approximately PHP2 billion ($35.93m) worth of assets this year, representing a significant increase compared to the previous year.

Industry experts surmise that the flow of cash from the sale will help the country further regain its footing in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

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The Philippines’ Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) has decried the new revenue-sharing formula proposed by the Philippines Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR). The BIR sees the new model as taking away “a huge part of the pie”.

Local media outlets are reporting that PAGCOR is proposing giving 2% of the tax payment from franchise operators to local government units (LGUs) hosting its casinos. PAGCOR’s reasoning for the revenue redistribution is to help the hosting cities develop themselves.

READ: Best Philippines casino sites in 2023

However, BIR representative and lawyer Ralbert Tibayan has told the country’s parliament that the sharing formula proposed by PAGCOR will drastically reduce government revenue from gambling.

The current sharing formula mandated by Philippine law is that 50% goes to the National Treasury as the government’s share of the tax revenue, 5% to the BIR, and 5% to the Philippine Sports Commission. PAGCOR also gives 1% of its income to the Board of Claims, while 1% goes to the LGUs.

Under the current model, LGUs last year walked away with PHP451.7 million while the BIR took PHP2.75 billion from PAGCOR’s earnings. But with the proposed model, PHP1.1 billion will go to LGUs and PHP1.65 billion to the BIR.

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