PAGCOR Chair Cautions Gambling Restrictions Not Key to Fixing Industry Problem

Speaking on Tuesday on the radio about a proposed ban on all Internet gambling in the Philippines, the head of PAGCOR, the country’s regulator, said that proposals to suspend all online gambling were premature and potentially harmful to the industry.

PAGCOR’s Boss Calls for Regulation, Not Restrictions

PAGCOR Chairman Alejandro Tengco called for a more rational approach that involves better overall regulation rather than suspending entire sectors of the industry that have proven to work.

A recently-proposed ban by Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri to suspend all Internet gambling was overreaching, Tengco believed, arguing that while better guardrails in the sectors were needed, there was hardly the need to take things to an extreme.

Zubiri’s not the only proposal on the table, however, with a rival bill filed by Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, who has been learning from international gambling markets, proposing more demanding onboarding rules for operators as well as tighter control over gambling advertising.

In addition, Gatchalian’s bill has suggested that platforms such as GCash and Maya ought to be excluded from the available payment options and, not least, that there should be a top-up threshold of PHP 10,000, about $177.

This opinion tracks with PAGCOR’s own insistence that stricter rules and not undoing past progress would be the best way to safeguard consumers and ensure that gambling continues to contribute to the country’s state coffers.

“PAGCOR’s current stand is not a total ban, but stricter regulation,” Tengco said in an interview. He noted that currently, regulated gambling companies were contributing significantly to taxes, with one company said to have paid between PHP 30 billion and PHP 40 billion.

The gambling industry is also believed to have a knock-on and uplifting impact on the economy, boosting other businesses as well: “Secondly, there are also ancillary businesses; there are security guards, drivers, messengers, restaurants where these people eat, various transportation companies used by those involved in the online gaming industry. So that’s the indirect one.”

Illegal Gambling Operators Dominate Philippines’ Online Gaming Space

Better regulation is the key to capturing a higher share of the gambling market as well, argues Tengco, who has acknowledged that around 50% to 55% of the current gambling market is dominated by illegal gambling operators.

The interview addressed how these issues can be tackled, with Tangco once again cautioning that an overbearing approach that restricts rather than addresses and understands the problems would be inefficient and blowback.