PH Senator pushes a Ban to POGOs and All Sort of Online Gambling...

[Baofeng]

Here's the latest, 1,000 POGO workers to be deported – PAOCC.

So there's a lot of cleaning up to do here from the government. And there are still a lot of news about illegal POGO who are still operating and so you will hear news from time to time that they have raided and captured Chinese again.

Hopefully they will not rest and still continue to pursue this illegal POGO's here, and then documented this Chinese or whatever nationalities and then deport them and make sure that they won't come back in the Philippines.

[qwertyup23]

I will be going against the majority opinion here but I submit that banning illegal POGOs in the Philippines would start the end of illegal and undocumented gambling activities in the country.

Some may have argued that POGOs bring revenue to the country and this may not be entirely accurate. The reason on why these operations have been banned because of their failure to procure any license from the government to maintain and establish their business in the country. Without a valid license, the revenue generated from POGOs would not inure to the benefit of the government. In addition, the start of the Chinese proliferation of POGOs are just the start- not the end of these activities.

As you may have imagined, there were several news where Chinese criminals had been linked to attacks, terrors, kidnappings, and other forms of violence in the country which most of them stemmed from operating POGOs.

While it is a fact that revenue generated from gambling brought $1.92 billion to the Philippines¹, still, this does not justify the operation of UNDOCUMENTED and ILLEGAL gambling establishments in the country.

1 https://igamingbusiness.com/finance/pagcor-revenue-record-2024/#:~:text=Online%20gambling%20growth%20drives%20Pagcor%20revenue%20to%20record%20PHP112%20billion%20in%202024,-31st%20January%202025&text=The%20Philippine%20Amusement%20and%20Gaming,within%20the%20online%20gambling%20sector.

[stompix]

Here's the latest, 1,000 POGO workers to be deported – PAOCC.

I am going to simply ask the obvious, why were those 1000 still in the country with no papers and no passports, POGO operators or not?
How come you have undocumented illegals operating a business that is under focus and they are in plain sight, it's not like the illegal immigrants that work on remote farms or have daily jobs each day at different locations, those were known locations under suspicion and yet thousands alone arrested and god knows how many fled before the police came?

Some may have argued that POGOs bring revenue to the country and this may not be entirely accurate.

Gambling can bring money into a country only if there is more money from foreigners lost than they win in the said country.
Otherwise, for the country itself it's a thing of taxation, and let's not ignore the fact that even if they do a lot of money laundering and avoid tax, those that earn money from running those business do end up buying stuff and thus paying VAT at least, so it's not like all that is lost revenue.

[Baofeng]

Here's the latest, 1,000 POGO workers to be deported – PAOCC.

I am going to simply ask the obvious, why were those 1000 still in the country with no papers and no passports, POGO operators or not?
How come you have undocumented illegals operating a business that is under focus and they are in plain sight, it's not like the illegal immigrants that work on remote farms or have daily jobs each day at different locations, those were known locations under suspicion and yet thousands alone arrested and god knows how many fled before the police came?

I can only speculate that the POGO operation is really huge in the country, and we know that they have a protector like a local mayor and perhaps cohorts with the BI (Bureau of Immigration). So in short, corruption of all the country that's why this operation really went very big during the pandemic and now it's very hard for the government to eradicate it.

And maybe up to this day, there are still some operating underground with the protection of police as well. So even in plain sight, they are very hard to be arrested. And they either have front as well, like operating a legit call center which the Philippines is well know that's why they were able to disguise everything.

If they want to hide their operations, they simply rent posh and gated community, high-end residential places, wherein you can't really see what's going on inside. And neighbors don't mind others businesses.

[Mr. Magkaisa]

Here's the latest, 1,000 POGO workers to be deported – PAOCC.

I am going to simply ask the obvious, why were those 1000 still in the country with no papers and no passports, POGO operators or not?
How come you have undocumented illegals operating a business that is under focus and they are in plain sight, it's not like the illegal immigrants that work on remote farms or have daily jobs each day at different locations, those were known locations under suspicion and yet thousands alone arrested and god knows how many fled before the police came?

Some may have argued that POGOs bring revenue to the country and this may not be entirely accurate.

Gambling can bring money into a country only if there is more money from foreigners lost than they win in the said country.
Otherwise, for the country itself it's a thing of taxation, and let's not ignore the fact that even if they do a lot of money laundering and avoid tax, those that earn money from running those business do end up buying stuff and thus paying VAT at least, so it's not like all that is lost revenue.

I have a friend before who work for POGO, he is not directly woring on the POGO site. The job is dto make the foreigner documented here in Philippines.
The told me when we were havign some wines that his work is to make safe the POGO worker legally documented in the PH, With hteir source inside governemnts money works for it, so thats it.

About that banning of POGO with only 12 of them are with liscence, They still cant close all others even the President said on his SONA before that he will banned all POGOS!
It is because of the money we are getting and the dirty mmey they are getting. Most politicians protects POGO.

[stompix]

I can only speculate that the POGO operation is really huge in the country, and we know that they have a protector like a local mayor and perhaps cohorts with the BI (Bureau of Immigration). So in short, corruption of all the country that's why this operation really went very big during the pandemic and now it's very hard for the government to eradicate it.

And maybe up to this day, there are still some operating underground with the protection of police as well. So even in plain sight, they are very hard to be arrested. And they either have front as well, like operating a legit call center which the Philippines is well know that's why they were able to disguise everything.

Sorry, but it's still people that came illegally there and were directly recruited into these schemes, the fact that they managed to arrest 1000 of them and they had no documents means they had also no legal cover, it's people who day after day are at the same place and live in the same location, that's why I said it's nothing like the illegals in the US who most of the time work outside cities or for short periods gigs.

Also, why employ illegals if you want to launder money, more headaches, and why would you want to draw attention on you, especially with problematic people? I swear sometimes those criminals look like they are amateurs at what they are doing.

I have a friend before who work for POGO, he is not directly woring on the POGO site. The job is dto make the foreigner documented here in Philippines.
The told me when we were havign some wines that his work is to make safe the POGO worker legally documented in the PH, With hteir source inside governemnts money works for it, so thats it.

Well, that's the thing, the article said something about 1000 people with no papers, no IDs, no nothing.

[sompitonov]

I can only speculate that the POGO operation is really huge in the country, and we know that they have a protector like a local mayor and perhaps cohorts with the BI (Bureau of Immigration). So in short, corruption of all the country that's why this operation really went very big during the pandemic and now it's very hard for the government to eradicate it.

And maybe up to this day, there are still some operating underground with the protection of police as well. So even in plain sight, they are very hard to be arrested. And they either have front as well, like operating a legit call center which the Philippines is well know that's why they were able to disguise everything.

If they want to hide their operations, they simply rent posh and gated community, high-end residential places, wherein you can't really see what's going on inside. And neighbors don't mind others businesses.

The systems in which they manage to make money can be quite good, and even improve very well over time. But I am convinced that eventually these things and systems will collapse, because they are not perfect, all this comes to light, more and more people will learn about it and those who do not like it. In general, the turning point will come, these may be dissatisfied losers, or those who were given less than others when running these games, or as a bribe. And as soon as this begins, this process will no longer be stopped, the only thing is too difficult to say when exactly this will happen.

[Fortify]

This is very bad for the people who love online gambling in the Philippines.  A senator of the Philippines proposes a Bill to ban all Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) and all kinds of Online Gambling.  Any individual involved  will be fined  up to Php500k(US$8,536) or imprisoned for up to six months.

The proposed bill is due to the recent illegal POGO raids where human trafficking, murder, and money laundering were uncovered. Due to this, one of the Philippine senators believes that the best move is to ban POGOs and online gambling all in all and punish any person who is involved in online gambling activity if the bill is approved.

In my personal view, I do not think there is a need to ban POGO's and online gambling.  This is not the fault of a regular individual but the institution behind the gambling regulatory board.  Instead of banning and penalizing people who are engaged in gambling activities, the bill should strengthen the regulation and purge the institution of any corrupt official that allows these illegal activities to proliferate.  He should implement a bill that will severely punish any government official that engage in illegal gambling activities. Banning POGOs and online gambling is like taking the easiest way out and depriving the Philippine government of the possible revenue that can be generated from these ventures and as if this kind of bill will prevent illegal gambling from existing in a country. I hope this kind of bill won't progress instead take an alternative implementation of cleansing the gambling regulatory board of any corrupt official and holding them accountable for their wicked crimes.

What about you do you think banning offshore gambling operators and online gambling will solve the spread of illegal gambling activities in a country?

Any country is free to enact their own laws and if one of the main reasons this senator got elected was because he promised to ban gambling, then maybe it is what the people want. However I wonder if it is just an easy target, a distraction away from the real problems of the country when a politician decides to target such industries that have a hard time defending themselves. If gambling is out of control, or the advertising of such companies needs to be reigned in, that might be a better approach. As they can sometimes push the boundaries and flood the market if they see room for profit. However a blanket ban on these sort of gambling companies is likely to backfire, because people will get around blocks and the money will only end up with overseas companies instead of being taxed locally.

[Yaunfitda]

I can only speculate that the POGO operation is really huge in the country, and we know that they have a protector like a local mayor and perhaps cohorts with the BI (Bureau of Immigration). So in short, corruption of all the country that's why this operation really went very big during the pandemic and now it's very hard for the government to eradicate it.

And maybe up to this day, there are still some operating underground with the protection of police as well. So even in plain sight, they are very hard to be arrested. And they either have front as well, like operating a legit call center which the Philippines is well know that's why they were able to disguise everything.

If they want to hide their operations, they simply rent posh and gated community, high-end residential places, wherein you can't really see what's going on inside. And neighbors don't mind others businesses.

The systems in which they manage to make money can be quite good, and even improve very well over time. But I am convinced that eventually these things and systems will collapse, because they are not perfect, all this comes to light, more and more people will learn about it and those who do not like it. In general, the turning point will come, these may be dissatisfied losers, or those who were given less than others when running these games, or as a bribe. And as soon as this begins, this process will no longer be stopped, the only thing is too difficult to say when exactly this will happen.

It's obvious that it collapsed already as the police is hot on the trail of this illegal operators in the Philippines. It's that they could be some that operates inside that is hard to track as reported before, they are being protected. Although the Philippines is well known to have illegal gambling in the province way before this exposure. But somewhat POGO makes it legal for many years under the President before. But now it's totally different as the result was very different from what they are expecting as it turn out worse and the obvious proliferation of online gambling and now it's hard to removed or minimized it because illegal POGO as still operating.

[Fredomago]

I can only speculate that the POGO operation is really huge in the country, and we know that they have a protector like a local mayor and perhaps cohorts with the BI (Bureau of Immigration). So in short, corruption of all the country that's why this operation really went very big during the pandemic and now it's very hard for the government to eradicate it.

And maybe up to this day, there are still some operating underground with the protection of police as well. So even in plain sight, they are very hard to be arrested. And they either have front as well, like operating a legit call center which the Philippines is well know that's why they were able to disguise everything.

If they want to hide their operations, they simply rent posh and gated community, high-end residential places, wherein you can't really see what's going on inside. And neighbors don't mind others businesses.

The systems in which they manage to make money can be quite good, and even improve very well over time. But I am convinced that eventually these things and systems will collapse, because they are not perfect, all this comes to light, more and more people will learn about it and those who do not like it. In general, the turning point will come, these may be dissatisfied losers, or those who were given less than others when running these games, or as a bribe. And as soon as this begins, this process will no longer be stopped, the only thing is too difficult to say when exactly this will happen.

Agree to that, even how good they'll going to hide it there's chance that someone will notice it and if that happen the surely it will be reported and the facilities will be taken by the goverment who are seeking deeply to ban and stop those activities, not unless they are two-faces type of business owner who can work and supply decent amount to anyone who's involve with those raids, they can quitely facilatate without a notice and can continue thier business as usual.

[Baofeng]

Here's some update related to POGO and gambling in the country,

AMLC scrutinizes online gambling for dirty money risks.

Despite the Pogo ban, Choon Hong Chua, head of financial crime practice group for Asia-Pacific and Middle East at Moody’s, said the risks associated with online gambling “remain” as the sector experiences “rapid” growth.

So it's not over for the Philippines, they are still under the scrutiny of the financial watchdogs.

The effects is still there though, as our country really sank into gambling with a reported half a billion revenues of online casinos.