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Philippines –New Finance Secretary calls for PAGCOR to offload its casinos
By Phil - 24 August 2016
PAGCOR, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp, could be forced to offload its casinos in the Philippines with the Department of Finance saying the country’s regulator shouldn’t operate public sector casinos.
New Finance Secretary, Carlos Dominguez said: “We believe that government should only be in regulatory functions and not in commercial functions and therefore must dispose of, by sale or closing down, the commercial functions.”
PAGCOR currently operates 11 casinos and several VIP slot clubs. As a regulator it oversees and regulates 10 private sector casinos operating 1,280 gaming tables and 7,205 EGMs as well as more than 180 bingo halls.
PAGCOR operates around a third of all table games in the Philippines and nearly six out of every 10 electronic gaming machines (EGMs) equating to 608 gaming tables and 10,603 EGMs.
It is not the first time calls have been made to cease PAGCOR’s dual functionality. In December 2015 towards the end of the old government, a government commission recommended PAGCOR’s casinos be privatised so that PAGCOR could concentrate on regulating them.
The move by the new government comes amid moves by PAGCOR to open the market to international operators.
PAGCOR CEO Andrea Domingo confirmed that application forms for six month online licences were being prepared. The regulator wants to make up for revenue losses following the government’s decision not to renew the licence of PhilWeb who operates 286 e-Games halls in the country.
The Philippines recently set up the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA) where the First Cagayan Leisure and Resort Corp licences Asian online operators who by law can’t take bets from Philippine customers.
The closure of PhilWeb’s e-Games network meanwhile has seen the company offer to donate a 49 per cent share in PhilWeb to PAGCOr as it battles to stay in operation. It has also suggested a new business to PAGCOR with it predicting that a mobile phone-based lottery called Pagcor Text Bonanza could generate P50 to P100bn in revenues.
