The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation understood that with the influx of privately-owned casinos in the Philippines, its days of monopolizing the gaming industry in the country would also come to an end.
And now, with the opening of Solaire Resort & Casino and the three other privately-owned casinos that will make up Entertainment City on their way, a decline in Pagcor’s gross gambling revenues is also to be expected. Evidently, that was the case when Pagcor posted gross revenues of Php30.8 billion in the first nine months of the year, five percent lower than its Php32.5 billion target for the period.
“The country’s gaming sector is growing but our income has declined because of competition given by these casinos,” Pagcor president and chief operating officer Jorge V. Sarmiento said.
“Coming from being the monopoly in the gaming industry, we’ve been really affected. But we believe that we can still co-exist with these new players,” the official added.
The effects of these privately-owned casinos are already being felt by the government-owned agency. In addition to posting lower gross revenues in the first nine months of 2013 compared to its 2012 figures, Pagcor has also had to close a number of its casinos, including at the Heritage Hotel Manila, located just a few cartwheels away from Entertainment City.
Despite retaining its status as one of the government’s largest revenue generating agencies, there have been calls from local lawmakers to replace the current agency with the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Commission, a new body that will be tasked to oversee gaming facilities in the country instead of outright owning and operating them.
Such discussions are a long ways away from happening, though, and Pagcor is currently attuned to reaching its lofty revenue targets for the entire year, a number CEO Cristino Naguiat Jr. put at Php42.9 billion. It’s got to make up some of those numbers judging by how its fared in the first nine months, but the agency is the first to acknowledge that doing so is only made harder now that these privately-owned casinos are essentially taking its old players away from its own establishments.
