Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte appears to have softened his stance on stamping out online gambling in the island nation.
Just when everybody thought that the industry is already good as dead, Reuters reported that Duterte has hinted allowing online gambling businesses to resume their operations provided that they follow the conditions set by the government.
First, Duterte wanted online gambling operators to pay the correct taxes due to the state and last is for them to put up shops away from school and churches.
“I will restore online (gambling) provided taxes are correctly collected and they are situated or placed in districts where gambling is allowed, which means to say, not within the church distance or schools,” Duterte said in a news briefing with members of the media.
The state-run Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR), revoked a total 124 eGames permits and turned down license renewal applications of 302 eGames and 324 eBingo outlets since Duterte took office in July 1 and declared that “online gambling must stop.”
Philippine-based gaming technology provider PhilWeb Corporation, which operates a network of 268 PAGCOR eGames, was the first casualty in Duterte’s war against online gambling since its former chair, Roberto Ongpin was an oligarch which the Philippine President wants to be destroyed.
Ongpin offered almost all – his resignation, his 49 percent shares in PhilWeb, construction of a drug rehabilitation facility – to appease Duterte and save the company from closing but to no avail. The company’s license, which expired on August 10, was not renewed by PAGCOR.
But two weeks after PhilWeb’s downfall, Duterte is suddenly changing his tune on online gambling.
“Pay the correct taxes… Gamble until you die. I do not really care,” Duterte said.
As for PhilWeb, the company is now looking forward to its plan to introduce a mobile phone-based lottery platform that is predicted to generate between P50 billion and P100 billion in potential annual revenues.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that PhilWeb has submitted its proposal to PAGCOR, which is pitched as a way to somehow compensate for revenues to be foregone from the scrapping of a nationwide network of e-Games.
According to PhilWeb, 70 percent of the revenue from the mobile lottery will go them while the remaining 30 will be given to the mobile operator.
At present, the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office operates the existing lotto, which generates about P30 billion a year, Philweb president Dennis Valdes
“The bettors are required to physically queue at each Lotto outlet in order to purchase their tickets, and during times when the lottery jackpot is large, these lines can extend up to a kilometer long and bettors have to queue for up to an hour under the sun, or the rain, in other to buy their tickets,” Valdes said in a letter to Pagcor dated Aug. 24.
With more than 100 million cell phones and 1.5 billion texts a day, Valdes said it was not difficult to see the advantage of Pagcor Text Bonaza over PCSO’s lotto system.
