The Philippine Amusement Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) is not supporting the Senate bills which seek to ban online gambling.

At a Senate hearing, PAGCOR President and CEO Alejandro Tengco explained that passing these proposed measures would lead to a loss of P40 billion in revenues.

“If this law that is being proposed will be passed, and in these difficult times that everyone is facing today, I believe P40 billion pesos is a big amount if we will forgo that said amount,” Tengco said.

“I’m very confident, barring any major development against it, PAGCOR, I can very well see with the trend in the first six months and with unregistered companies now coming forward and willing to register, PAGCOR stands to lose the revenue of a minimum of P40 billion pesos,” he said.

Senate Bills 63 and 1281 filed by Senator Alan Peter Cayetano and Senator Joel Villanueva, respectively, seek to prohibit online gambling activities.

Upon the inquiry of Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, Tengco said PAGCOR was able to collect P13.7 billion from the gross gaming revenue (GGR) by the end of 2023 for online games only.

For the first half of this year, Tengco said they were able to generate P17.5 billion.

“That’s why, if truly, we will be able to turn the non-registered to register or the illegals to become legal, I am very confident that PAGCOR will generate anywhere from P38 to around 42 billion pesos from the online gaming licensees alone,” he said.

In an ambush interview, Tengco stressed that regulating online gaming, including that in the “gray market” would yield bigger revenues for PAGCOR>

“No ban…. Napakalaki po ng gray market sa online gaming humigit kumulang sa estimate namin  200 to 250 billion pesos. Kung hindi po natin yan ire-regulate, saan po mapupunta yan kundi sa mga bulsa lamang na nagpapatakbo ng mga operations na ito. Hindi po nakikinabang d’yan kahit isang sentimmo ang gobyerno,” he said.

[No ban … the gray market in online gambling is estimated to be 200 to 250 billion. If we don’t regulate, it would only go to those running the operations. The government would not benefit from it even a single centavo.]

“Sa paniwala ko po if all these online companies are properly regulated napakalaking halaga po ng buwis na kinukulekta ng PAGCOR ang pwedeng maibalik muli sa ating mga kababayan gayundin sa ating bansa,” he added.

[I believe that if all these online companies are properly regulated, PAGCOR would get a huge amount of tax which would benefit the public and the country.]

At the early part of the hearing, PAGCOR Senior Vice President for security monitoring cluster Raul Villanueva said 5,793 of 7,747 illegal online gambling sites have been shut down, while 1,954 sites are still active.

Villanueva said PAGCOR has been monitoring not only the illegal online games but also other classifications like online sabong, Facebook ads, mobile applications, offshore sites, spam messages including those in Telegram.

In a separate ambush interview, Gatchalian, who presided over the hearing, said online gambling should be studied further as this is a new technology.

Further, he stressed the need for stringent monitoring for online gambling as more Filipinos might be addicted to this activity, like in the case of online sabong.

“Definitely, dapat ding bantayang mabuti ito dahil nga nakita natin kanina ‘pag magbubukas ka ng online gaming account madaling magbukas. Pwede kang magbigay ng pekeng pangalan, pekeng age,” he said.

[Definitely, this should be monitored properly … we saw earlier how it is easy to open an online gaming account. You can give fake names, age.]

“So far wala tayong nakikita doon kundi addiction…Ang pinaka nakakatakot dito yung mga enforcement agencies natin ay maadik sa online gaming. Kanina nasabi ng PNP na meron talaga tayong mga kapulisan na na-dismiss dahil sa online gaming, hindi maganda ‘yun dahil kung nabaon ka sa utang sigurado kukunin ‘yun sa iligal na aktibidad,” he added.

[So far, what we see is addiction. What is worrisome here is our law enforcement agencies to get hooked in online gaming. The PNP said that there have been instances where police officers get dismissed due to online gaming. Once you are heavily burdened in debts, for sure you’ll go into illegal activities.] — RSJ, GMA Integrated News