The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (Pagcor) “has been busy” updating the regulatory frameworks and manuals” for suppliers and other various businesses that operate in the country’s gaming industry.

“A major update is expected in the casino regulatory manual, to integrate all the major revisions over the past six years,” said on Tuesday Gilbert Remulla, a member of the board of directors of Pagcor. He was speaking in Manila during a panel (pictured) at the ASEAN Gaming Summit, a gaming-industry trade event.

The agency’s gaming licensing and development department “is also currently working on a junket registration and licensing framework, which hopefully will be in effect before the end of the year,” stated Mr Remulla.

The official said Pagcor was aiming to introduce “stricter auditing platforms” regarding the licensing process for junkets.

“Pagcor is committed to doing its share to remove the Philippines from the FATF grey list,” noted Mr Gilbert, referring to a “grey list” of non-complaint jurisdictions designated by the Paris-based watchdog the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The country was added to the that list in June 2021.

The Pagcor board member also flagged a reorganisation within Pagcor, contributing to “revitalise” the body’s compliance monitoring and enforcement department.

He added: “If there’s one takeaway we would like you to have from the past 20 months, it is that Pacor is serious about its role as a regulator, but at the same time serious about being friendly to business.”

Mr Gilbert also acknowledged that Pagcor’s Offshore Gaming Licensing Department “has not been lacking in challenges over the past 20 months”.

The Pagcor board approved in July last year new regulations for offshore gaming operators in the country, now called “Internet Gaming Licensees”, or IGLs.

The main goals of such regulatory update were “to clean up the industry of bad players, bring consistency to the regulatory framework, and bring in more revenues for the Philippine government,” said on Tuesday Mr Gilbert.

“I can confidently say that Pagcor is succeeding in achieving its goals, despite the challenges that it constantly faces,” he said, adding that electronically-delivered gaming was providing “the biggest growth in both gross gaming revenue and Pagcor’s revenue share.

New window for IGLs

According to Mr Gilbert, the “rise in popularity” of electronic gaming “was coupled with Pagcor’s open-mindedness to lower regulatory fees, approved specialty games, and rationalise the regulations.”

“The number of applicants to be [offshore] operators and service providers has grown so much that Pagcor’s leadership decided to put a soft moratorium on new applications to properly service the applications currently in the pipeline,” he added.

Jessa Fernandez, Pagcor’s assistant vice pesident – Offshore Gaming Licensing Department, said on Tuesday that the agency might gradually lift the temporary suspension on applications for IGLs.

“We received about 100 applications in July. Since we are thoroughly vetting these applicants … we really wanted to focus on the applications that we had received,” explained Ms Fernandez.

She added: “But we are now at a manageable level. So we are reviewing whether to, little by little, lift the temporary suspension that we have imposed.”

Ms Fernandez said the country had now about 50 IGLs, “holding either regular licences or provisional licences”.

“But unlike in the old framework where we had a lot of service providers, now we have very limited number of service providers. So, from around 200 in 2023, we only have 21 at present,” she added.

Asked about a recent raid of facilities in Tarlac, located in the central Luzon region, of one operator licensed for offshore business, Ms Fernandez said the operator “only held a provisional licence”.

According to local media reports, the Philippine authorities last week had “rescued” 875 people during a raid at the offices of an offshore licensee, identified as Zun Yuan Technology Inc.

“The licence of this operator has already been cancelled immediately,” noted Ms Fernandez.

Mr Gilbert added that Pagcor’s regulations regarding offshore operations “will constantly improve over time”. He added: “We will always respond to the challenges like this latest one, taking into account the details behind it.”