Full-year 2023 gross gaming revenue (GGR) generated by venues operated by the Philippine casino regulator rose by 23.6 percent year-on-year, to PHP19.63 billion (US$350.6 million). The figure includes the Casino Filipino venues, as well as poker and so-called “in-house bingo”, according to data by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (Pagcor).

The 2023 GGR tally generated by Pagcor-operated venues was down 47.2 percent on the pre-pandemic year of 2019.

Pagcor is set to start privatising its Casino Filipino properties “in the late part of 2025 or early 2026,” confirmed on Tuesday the agency’s chairman and chief executive, Alejandro Tengco.

Mr Tengco had previously mentioned the importance of modernising Pagcor’s slot machine operations in the land-based Casino Filipino network. He said the agency would be installing a “total of 3,500 brand-new electronic gaming machines” under a lease agreement” with a manufacturer.

Pagcor is also preparing to launch its own online casino brand, casinofilipino.com, in the second half of this year.

Commentators at a Wednesday panel at the ASEAN Gaming Summit suggested the move for an online Casino Filipino “made complete sense”, as it would “add value to their brand, including the land-based operations” ahead of the planned sale of the Pagcor-owned casino network.

Industry-wide, the nation’s 2023 GGR – including non-casino operations – reached just above PHP285.27 billion, up 33.1 percent year-on-year, and 11.2-percent higher than the previous record of PHP256.49 billion set in 2019.

The country’s integrated resorts – at Entertainment City in Metro Manila, as well as commercial venues in Clark, Cebu and Rizal and Poro Point – were the biggest 2023 contributors to the gaming industry’s revenues, with a PHP207.48 billion take, with electronically-delivered gaming at PHP58.16 billion.

Among the large-scale resorts at Entertainment City, Solaire Resort and Casino, run by Bloomberry Resorts Corp, recorded the highest GGR in 2023, at PHP61.02 billion, showed the data from Pagcor. Okada Manila, operated by a unit of Universal Entertainment Corp, was second with nearly PHP44.53 billion in terms of GGR.

Elsewhere in the country, the Hann Resorts, at Clark, generated gross gaming revenue of PHP11.88 billion, while the NUSTAR Resort and Casino, a tourism complex in Cebu that launched in 2022, recorded GGR of PHP5.51 billion.

Pagcor’s Mr Tengco and the head of the country’s Governance Commission for Government-Owned and Controlled Corporations, Marius Corpus, recently signed Pagcor’s 2024 performance scorecard, with the gaming agency’s targets and revenue projections for the year, according to a Thursday press release.

Pagcor expects the nation’s gaming industry to generate PHP336.38 billion this year, a 17.9-percent increase compared with 2023.

Commercial venues are expected to “contribute as much as PHP256.63 billion” to the country’s GGR in 2024, according to previous remarks by Mr Tengco. Electronically-delivered gaming was likely to contribute PHP61.75 billion this year, he added.