State-run Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) has greenlit the resumption of some of the eBingo parlors of Philippine gaming investor Leisure and Resorts World Corp (LRWC).
LRWC said in a filing before the Philippine Stock Exchange on Monday that AB Leisure Exponent Inc., one of its subsidiaries, was able to secure a permit for some of its electronic bingo parlors to resume operations in the country.
Of the 36 electronic bingo games parlors of AB Leisure, only 20 eBingo sites have been allowed to operate.
“AB Leisure Exponent Inc … on 24 September 2016 received via email, notices from [the] Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (Pagcor) of the approval by Pagcor … to recall the revocation to operate eBingo,” said LRWC in a filing to the Philippine Stock Exchange, referring to a decision by the country’s gaming regulator.
“Twenty eBingo sites have resumed its operations by virtue of the aforesaid approval,” the company added.
On September 8, the state regulator has ordered the closure of 53 electronic gaming and electronic bingo sites of LRWC for not complying with the distance restriction guidelines defined in Section 2 of Regulation 3 of the Gaming Site Regulatory Manual.
Under Section 2, gaming sites must be 200 meters away from schools and churches. LRWC subsidiaries AB Leisure Exponent and Total Gamezone Xtreme Inc. (TGXI) received separate notices from PAGCOR to cease and desist their respective operations.
According to LRWC, they were able to secure a permit from PAGCOR after it was able to explain to the state regulator that they needed to honor the licenses issued by the state regulator. The firm noted that Pagcor’s board of directors “allowed the resumption of eBingo operations until the respective expiration of the licences of the sites.”
“The approval was based on the recommendation of Pagcor’s Gaming Licensing and Development Department and the legal opinion of its Corporate and Legal Services Department to honour the licences of operators whose gaming sites are located inside malls, arcades and hotels, and consider them exempted from distance requirements,” the company said.
LRWC said Pagcor is “still in the process of studying whether they will permanently maintain the exemption of malls, arcades and hotels from the distance requirements.”
