PAGCOR tightens rules, but Offshore Casinos remain accessible

[GreatArkansas]

The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) is targeting December 2026 for the launch of a mobile application that will help players identify licensed online gaming platforms and avoid illegal gambling sites.
I dont know what the app will be but do they really need to make an app or just publish the list of legit and legal Online casino on their website. for more information you can visit PAGCOR

Yeah a list on their website is already enough, no need for another app. Here in the Philippines people who want offshore will still change DNS or use VPN anyway. They are all jokes to be honest, some are just showing off about these but still, they still cant solve a lot of problems especially there are still lot illegal gambling casinos online that are operating. Better if PAGCOR just keeps that licensed list updated and public.

[Maslate]

The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) is targeting December 2026 for the launch of a mobile application that will help players identify licensed online gaming platforms and avoid illegal gambling sites.
I dont know what the app will be but do they really need to make an app or just publish the list of legit and legal Online casino on their website. for more information you can visit PAGCOR

That's a good move but I think it's not really that helpful since there aren't many reports about gamblers using illegal casinos. But it's still a good to help gamblers use legal casinos although that's not really the main problem of the country, the problem is gambling addiction which is a growing concern considering their high revenue, maybe that's what they should focus on instead, and PAGCOR should really act independently without being influenced by wealthy and corrupt individuals.

[Odusko]

The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) is targeting December 2026 for the launch of a mobile application that will help players identify licensed online gaming platforms and avoid illegal gambling sites.
I dont know what the app will be but do they really need to make an app or just publish the list of legit and legal Online casino on their website. for more information you can visit PAGCOR

That's a good move but I think it's not really that helpful since there aren't many reports about gamblers using illegal casinos. But it's still a good to help gamblers use legal casinos although that's not really the main problem of the country, the problem is gambling addiction which is a growing concern considering their high revenue, maybe that's what they should focus on instead, and PAGCOR should really act independently without being influenced by wealthy and corrupt individuals.

The data for illegal gambling platforms in the Philippines will be high considering their population rate and development, their society is filled with young people with alot of energy but lack of job and poor government regulations that don't favour it teaming youths.

This Is what push alot of them to gambling and statistically, Philippine make up for a large number of global online gambling volume, so the illegal casinos will be very high in this places.

[SatsPH]

The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) is targeting December 2026 for the launch of a mobile application that will help players identify licensed online gaming platforms and avoid illegal gambling sites.
I dont know what the app will be but do they really need to make an app or just publish the list of legit and legal Online casino on their website. for more information you can visit PAGCOR

Is this the same app that we have discussed before? PAGCOR to launch an app for licensed online casinos.

As for the offshore gaming, license casinos here are really that aggressive in their marketing. Casino plus has this sort of game every Wednesday, they call it Winsday wherein it ran from 9 pm to 11 pm that you can get free money.

But you have to bet as least 3 dollars to quality. And if you have invited friends at least 5 of them, your winnings will be x5. So still with this kind of promotion, I don't think that gambling will be lessen in our country.

[cryptoaddictchie]

The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) is targeting December 2026 for the launch of a mobile application that will help players identify licensed online gaming platforms and avoid illegal gambling sites.
I dont know what the app will be but do they really need to make an app or just publish the list of legit and legal Online casino on their website. for more information you can visit PAGCOR

Wow this ia interesting for something to monitor the legal casinos as if those are a lot. What they need to do is secure their matter on users whose been denied of their partner casinos cause even though they had a lot of new licensed casino on the line and will be listed on the app, people still will always brought up the issue on this and maybe they cant lure some players cause they already know how they handle on players supposedly winnings.

[OlarValdo]

The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) is targeting December 2026 for the launch of a mobile application that will help players identify licensed online gaming platforms and avoid illegal gambling sites.
I dont know what the app will be but do they really need to make an app or just publish the list of legit and legal Online casino on their website. for more information you can visit PAGCOR

That's a good move but I think it's not really that helpful since there aren't many reports about gamblers using illegal casinos. But it's still a good to help gamblers use legal casinos although that's not really the main problem of the country, the problem is gambling addiction which is a growing concern considering their high revenue, maybe that's what they should focus on instead, and PAGCOR should really act independently without being influenced by wealthy and corrupt individuals.

The data for illegal gambling platforms in the Philippines will be high considering their population rate and development, their society is filled with young people with alot of energy but lack of job and poor government regulations that don't favour it teaming youths.

This Is what push alot of them to gambling and statistically, Philippine make up for a large number of global online gambling volume, so the illegal casinos will be very high in this places.

It always seems like the young and poor get blamed for every negative statistic when most of them just have very few options. Blaming them alone for it doesn't seem fair to me.

[fullfitlarry]

That's a good move but I think it's not really that helpful since there aren't many reports about gamblers using illegal casinos. But it's still a good to help gamblers use legal casinos although that's not really the main problem of the country, the problem is gambling addiction which is a growing concern considering their high revenue, maybe that's what they should focus on instead, and PAGCOR should really act independently without being influenced by wealthy and corrupt individuals.

Yes, but I think there are still Filipino gamblers who can't distinguished legal and illegal gambling sites. You can go to Google Play and you can see that in the first page, you might found a lot of illegal gambling sites.

Like Casino Plus, there are a lot of fake sites on it. I was once trap by this fake site download it and I thought it was the real one. So I deleted it immediately as I noticed that the logo is the same but the developer is different.

[qwertyup23]

Posting this not just to discuss the gambling laws in our country, but also to see how other countries regulate online gambling and to hear the real experiences of users here.

<...>

So a country can be strict with its rules but still cannot stop people from accessing offshore casinos, are they just fooling themselves? I mean the problem is also outside their jurisdiction and they are not fully addressing it.

In Europe it is the same as in your country. What you don’t realise is that what governments are really after is revenue. Protecting consumers is just an excuse. Through national licences, they generate revenue, and they know that a certain percentage of gamblers slip through the net because they access offshore casinos, but the fact is that they used to collect nothing, and now they collect a fair amount. That’s what matters to them.

I agree with you completely. Gambling, as we all know, generates tons of revenues in the country. In the Philippines alone, it is responsible for bringing 1/3 of its revenue annually.

While the Philippines issued a prohibition and stringent applications against local gambling websites, still, offshore (or international) gambling websites still have access in our country. At the end of the day, the country can only control what happens inside the country and not outside for revenue purposes.

Do I think that this is a good move for the country? Yes- it helps and at least lessens the number of the younger generation from freely accessing gambling websites. However, I do consider it as a band-aid solution as it only stops and halts access to local casinos which can be circumvented easily.

[gracreavix]

Offshore Casinos are convenient and allows you to bypass  restrictions but the moment you face a problem involving your deposit and profit getting stuck, it could become a bit hard to fix it depending on a lot of factors especially if your choice is a non-reputable Casino..

Otherwise, the government and their rules don’t really care how you spend your money most times,  unless you’re under their radar.

If they can benefit from the situation, then it might be possible to help you with some fines or something worse but in most cases it’s always hard.

The government do care about how you spend your money because at the end, it will affect them. Imagine 80% of the citizens take their money outside the country. Yes they get taxed but won't make as much if the citizens spend such funds in their own country. So the government do care, but they can't be every where. You did made a good point; giving you your onions. As you have said that if you have any issues, the government won't be able to help you. That is a downside. There are others. But for me personally, that is a downside using such casinos that are overseas.

[DrBeer]

The government basically can't completely ban offshore casinos.. What they can mostly do is restrict people from accessing them by blocking access, but people can still get around it by activating DNS or using a VPN.. Yes, it really comes down to people's choice because even if there's a legal casino operating, if it often has issues, don't be surprised if more players choose to play at offshore casinos that offer more attractive bonuses and fairer games.

In short they can't stop people and whatever measures they take will not be effective,

unless you are living in a country where they would send gamblers to jail if they violate the law.

[1] Singapore - up to 6 months in jail
[2] Thailand - up to 3 years in jail.
[3] United Arab Emirates - up to 2 years in jail.

The severity of a punishment is always offset by the possibility of avoiding it...
Corruption, connections, bribes-and you're free to carry on with your "business." Big money provides "big opportunities" in this regard. It seems to me that the most effective measure would not be prison terms, but the confiscation of all assets, including bank accounts, crypto assets, and the like.
Getting out of prison after six months isn't a problem. But ending up with a completely empty wallet and "not a penny to your name"-that's a really big problem, because without money, it's almost impossible to start a new "business."

[YOSHIE]

Posting this not just to discuss the gambling laws in our country, but also to see how other countries regulate online gambling and to hear the real experiences of users here.

As far as I know, PAGCOR's main goal is to help players identify licensed online casinos or not before carrying out any activity, not to prohibit Offshore Casinos from being accessible by players.

As ranked by PAGCOR of the Filipino people.

PAGCOR urges the public to use the website to check the legitimacy of online gaming platforms before participating in any form of online gambling.

Here we can conclude, even though PAGCOR implements rules regarding Gaming Affiliate Accreditation, they cannot do much about illegal casinos that can be accessed in the Philippines.
Reason: PAGCOR targets December launch of app vs. illegal online gambling, yes, maybe after the launch of the application, the offshore/illegal gambling sites in the Philippines may disappear, leaving only licensed casinos.

[bisdak40]

That's a good move but I think it's not really that helpful since there aren't many reports about gamblers using illegal casinos. But it's still a good to help gamblers use legal casinos although that's not really the main problem of the country, the problem is gambling addiction which is a growing concern considering their high revenue, maybe that's what they should focus on instead, and PAGCOR should really act independently without being influenced by wealthy and corrupt individuals.

People are playing on online casinos without knowing if they are playing in an illegal or legal casinos because they have not been scammed at least for those people i have known playing scatter games. But the problem is on the legal casinos that on the news recently where 8 individuals were complaining because they were not being paid by their winnings of up to billions of pesos but PAGCOR was very slow to act on it and even sided with those big online casinos by offering those individuals little amount as a settlement for what they called a glitch. PAGCOR is known to be a corrupt agencies so we can't expect so much from them helping gamblers solve their problems.

[Hispo]

That's a good move but I think it's not really that helpful since there aren't many reports about gamblers using illegal casinos. But it's still a good to help gamblers use legal casinos although that's not really the main problem of the country, the problem is gambling addiction which is a growing concern considering their high revenue, maybe that's what they should focus on instead, and PAGCOR should really act independently without being influenced by wealthy and corrupt individuals.

Yes, but I think there are still Filipino gamblers who can't distinguished legal and illegal gambling sites. You can go to Google Play and you can see that in the first page, you might found a lot of illegal gambling sites.

Like Casino Plus, there are a lot of fake sites on it. I was once trap by this fake site download it and I thought it was the real one. So I deleted it immediately as I noticed that the logo is the same but the developer is different.

That is just another thing: Google is very bad when it comes to removing fake applications and scams off their play store.
I have seen pretty much a little bit of everything there: fake mining applications, fishing attempts targeting ledger and Trezor users, and also fake casinos seeking to steal Deposits from people.
I have also encountered a lot of Ponzi schemes there.

I don't even know why Google allows so many scams to take room on their store, knowing there is more traffic and more potential victims than there are in other stores, particularly the Apple store.

At least you were intelligence and savvy enough to realize you were about to get scammed and avoided it.

[yhiaali3]

No matter how strict the regulations are and no matter how much there is a ban, people will always find a way to overcome all of this. Even in countries that completely ban gambling, such as Islamic countries, people there still gamble in secret.

As for casinos and even governments, all they care about is money, so they overlook some regulatory matters if it brings them a lot of money and they are strict when it is in their interest, and the argument is to protect users.

[fullfitlarry]

No matter how strict the regulations are and no matter how much there is a ban, people will always find a way to overcome all of this. Even in countries that completely ban gambling, such as Islamic countries, people there still gamble in secret.

As for casinos and even governments, all they care about is money, so they overlook some regulatory matters if it brings them a lot of money and they are strict when it is in their interest, and the argument is to protect users.

Yes, I understand the argument to protect the users, but if you look at it, it's just there and nothing more. Our government really needs to step up in everything if they really want to protect us.

The problem is that, they will say one thing, but then when you go and turn back, it won't be strictly implemented. That's why to each it's own here, just do your own research on which platform is legit or not otherwise you can still be trap by illegal casinos even if there is this so called tightening rules.

[Captain Corporate]

No matter how strict the regulations are and no matter how much there is a ban, people will always find a way to overcome all of this. Even in countries that completely ban gambling, such as Islamic countries, people there still gamble in secret.

As for casinos and even governments, all they care about is money, so they overlook some regulatory matters if it brings them a lot of money and they are strict when it is in their interest, and the argument is to protect users.

When common people are not caring themselves, I believe that government's regulation on gambling is somehow needed because until you lose all your wealth, you will never realize the cruelness of gambling. So, whatever reasons that government saying for regulations, I feel like that there should be some governance is needed so that some people will get enlightenment against gambling and its destructive nature.

I always welcome regulation on gambling industry. Because, there are lots of lesser educated to no literacy people everywhere and we need to care for them as well. So, I believe government policies will help at least 1% people of total population in the worst case.

[SatsPH]

People are playing on online casinos without knowing if they are playing in an illegal or legal casinos because they have not been scammed at least for those people i have known playing scatter games. But the problem is on the legal casinos that on the news recently where 8 individuals were complaining because they were not being paid by their winnings of up to billions of pesos but PAGCOR was very slow to act on it and even sided with those big online casinos by offering those individuals little amount as a settlement for what they called a glitch. PAGCOR is known to be a corrupt agencies so we can't expect so much from them helping gamblers solve their problems.

Yes, scatter games has been big in our country, and for some of the gamblers, it doesn't matter if it is illegal or legal casinos. As long as they are playing this games, they will be ok with it.

The problem only arises when the gamblers tries to withdraw and he can't or he can't win the games because it is rigged by the casinos. So maybe it's really time for PAGCOR to step up and do what they are mandated by law.

[batang_bitcoin]

No matter how strict the regulations are and no matter how much there is a ban, people will always find a way to overcome all of this. Even in countries that completely ban gambling, such as Islamic countries, people there still gamble in secret.

I agree, it doesn't matter for a government agency to put up a ban to offshore casinos because users will still find a way to access it. And on this yoshie is right about that the main goal is to make people known which one is legal and illegal. By that, gamblers will only play on registered casinos locally and not on the ones that are operating locally and yet have no permission to operate.

As for casinos and even governments, all they care about is money, so they overlook some regulatory matters if it brings them a lot of money and they are strict when it is in their interest, and the argument is to protect users.

If it's also known with the corruption which is rampant in the country, even for the illegal ones they can still operate without being taken down due to some backer systems of big and powerful people in the government.

[Saint-loup]

That's a good move but I think it's not really that helpful since there aren't many reports about gamblers using illegal casinos. But it's still a good to help gamblers use legal casinos although that's not really the main problem of the country, the problem is gambling addiction which is a growing concern considering their high revenue, maybe that's what they should focus on instead, and PAGCOR should really act independently without being influenced by wealthy and corrupt individuals.

People are playing on online casinos without knowing if they are playing in an illegal or legal casinos because they have not been scammed at least for those people i have known playing scatter games. But the problem is on the legal casinos that on the news recently where 8 individuals were complaining because they were not being paid by their winnings of up to billions of pesos but PAGCOR was very slow to act on it and even sided with those big online casinos by offering those individuals little amount as a settlement for what they called a glitch. PAGCOR is known to be a corrupt agencies so we can't expect so much from them helping gamblers solve their problems.

You're certainly right but if a casino is registered and has a legal license in your country, even if the gambling authority doesn't make much things to help consumers, people can still take a lawyer and bring to justice the company trying to scam them. So if you've managed to win a big prize at a licensed casino, you have still ways to get your winnings even if the administration is biased and corrupt. If the casino is illicit in your country it's way harder because national courts might declare themselves lacking jurisdiction to handle your dispute.

[Sanitough]

people can still take a lawyer and bring to justice the company trying to scam them.

It's easy to say that but if you are familiar with how the law works in the Philippines, you would not think of taking it to court if the amount is not that big since the justice system is very slow. For cases like that, it might take many years before they get resolved so it's not worth it as you might end up spending more money hiring a lawyer than what you could potentially recover.