State-run Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (Pagcor) reported total income of PHP25.24 billion (US$437.2 million) for the first quarter of 2024. First-quarter income increased by 42.6 percent from the prior-year period, and was up 29.5 percent from the previous quarterly record of PHP19.49 billion achieved in first-quarter 2019, according to a Sunday press release.

The announcement quoted Pagcor chairman and chief executive, Alejandro Tengco, as saying that  the first-quarter earnings put the agency “on track to reach PHP100 billion annual income” in 2024, which he said “would be a first in the 40-year history of the state gaming firm”.

“We are happy to announce that Pagcor is able to sustain our growth trajectory in the first quarter of 2024 and this should help position us into achieving another record-breaking year,” Mr Tengco said.

The gaming regulator posted net operating income after expenses of PHP18.99 billion in the three months to March 31, 54.2-percent higher than a year earlier.

Gaming operations accounted for the bulk the agency’s first-quarter revenues, at PHP22.29 billion. Of that amount, nearly 43.5 percent – or PHP9.69 billion – was generated by the electronically-delivered gaming sector such as “e-Bingo, e-Games and bingo grantees,” stated Pagcor.

The country’s licensed commercial-sector casinos brought in PHP8.04 billion, or about 36.1 percent of first-quarter revenues.

Pagcor said revenues from its publicly-owned Casino Filipino chain of gaming venues “continued to slide”, earning PHP3.7 billion, or 16.6 percent of the first quarter aggregate tally. This was down from the nearly 20.7-percent share it contributed to Pagcor’s revenues in first-quarter 2023.

Offshore gaming operations contributed just under PHP860.9 million – or 3.9 percent – of the quarterly revenues.

Mr Tengco reiterated that the country’s e-Games sector would be the agency’s “major source of gaming revenues this year and in the next few years as innovation and technological integration allows the sector to offer more excitement and convenience to gamers.”

“Our robust earnings also bode well for the government’s various socio-civic programmes,” he added.

Of the agency’s first-quarter net income, just under PHP15.6 billion will go to its contributions to nation-building programmes, in the form of subsidies, financial assistance and other contributions to the government. Among these payments, Pagcor is required by law to pass at least 50 percent of its gross earnings to the national government.

In March, Pagcor said it had remitted nearly PHP4.60 billion in cash dividends to the nation’s Bureau of the Treasury. The figure represented 75 percent of the agency’s net income attributed for calendar year 2023, although a portion of the cash represented money that had been “advanced”, it said at the time.

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