Gambling in the Philippines: Difference between revisions

Gambling in the Philippines is generally restricted by government laws. Illegal forms of gambling include jueteng, masiao and last two.^[1]

There are no laws prohibiting online gambling in particular, therefore legal.^[2] On his first cabinet meeting on June 30, 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte wants to stop online gambling and revoke all licenses to regulators and operators in the future.^[3]

Gambling is said to have already been present in the Philippines even before the Spanish colonization. ^[4] Although there are no exact records when gambling was first practiced in the archipelago, it is possible that some forms were introduced by the Chinese in the late sixteenth century. Due to the proximity of the two countries, many local Chinese would go to the Philippines for business and profit, engaging in different trades and activities. ^{[5] [6]} On Magellan’s voyage to the Philippines, it was noted in the accounts of Antonio Pigafetta, that he had already witnessed bets being placed on cockfights when his ship arrived in Palawan in 1521. ^[4]

During the Spanish occupation, gambling became institutionalized in the forms of cockpits, card parlours, billiard halls, and the like. Around the early to mid-19th century, lotteries^[7] and horseracing^[8] had been introduced. Casinos had also been established at that time.^[9] It had then become a problem for the Spanish colonizers^[4]; it was noted in the account of Antonio Morga that men in Manila had grown accustomed to gamble for enormous and excessive stakes^[10], and gambling had become prevalent in all sectors of society. Due to its detrimental effects, the colonial government took steps to suppress these activities, but this had little effect and by majority of the 19th century, this had become a national phenomenon.^[4]

Cockfighting, in particular, was a favorite past time in the Philippines. Nearly every village had its own cockpit, and the activity had its own system for how it is to be played, as well as the fees paid, days performed, and others. Visitors in the country would note the amount of care which the roosters were treated, and most visitors would attend a cockpit during their stay. According to the number of arrests made by the police in the late 19th century, it is probable that the presence of cockfighting may have encouraged other forms of gambling. This led to even more edicts, enforcement, and penalties, where the government set certain days and times of the day for it to be allowed. This, however, still proved difficult to control due to its prevalence, and was significantly decriminalized later on when the government opened the country to foreign trade and overseas markets due to the need for internal sources of revenue. This carried on until the American occupation.^[4]

Like the Spaniards, the Americans initially tried to ban gambling, but later on, betting was re-introduced around 1912.^[11] American insular authorities then decided that gambling cannot be controlled, and it was better to earn funds from this than to prohibit it.^[4] Institutionalized gambling for charitable purposes began in the 1930s, where horse racing was allowed for the benefit of the Philippine Athletic Amateur Federation (now the Philippine Olympic Committee), and since then only civic associations were allowed to fold horse races for fundraising. These were controlled by the organization called the National Charity Sweepstakes. Legislation in the country then changed around mid-1930s to institutionalize the sweepstakes in order to raise funds to promote public health and general welfare. National Charity Sweepstakes was then changed to Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office. ^[7]

After the colonial period, the government took responsibility to oversee gambling in the country. In 1976, during the Martial Law Era, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) was created by the government to regulate the ten gaming casinos that existed before the pre-EDSA era. The agency aimed for government regulation and centralization of all games of chance under existing franchises or permitted by law. By 1985, the coverage and privileges of PAGCOR were expanded, and the agency and casinos were constantly improved unto the 1990s. Bingo and the lottery had also been developed under PAGCOR. Within the 20th century, PAGCOR experienced both dips and hikes in income growth rate, which mostly depended on the visits of foreign big-time players, but was also largely affected by the Asian financial crisis in 1997. During dips in income growth rate, the agency would increase efforts by branching out to new ventures such as Bingo and Jai Alai.^[12]

Since then, various forms of gambling have been introduced and improved, and continues to spread and prevail all over the country. Recently, because President Rodrigo Duterte has initiated to mend the relations between the Philippines and China, Chinese visitors in the country are expected to increase, and this possibly attracts more investments. This puts the Philippines in competition with Macau and Singapore to become a gambling hub that targets Asia's rising middle class.^[13]

In the Philippines, number games and games of chance are regulated, controlled, and under the direct supervision of centralized government agencies. The most well known of these agencies, Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR), both operates and licenses gambling casinos, gaming clubs, and other similar recreational spaces. PAGCOR holds the authority and power to authorize, license, and regulate games of chance, games of cards, and games of numbers, however, this authority does not extend to games authorized, licensed, or regulated by existing franchises or other regulatory bodies, special laws such as Republic Act No. 7922, and local government units.^[14]

Charity sweepstakes and lotteries (including online Keno) are also managed by the government through the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.^[15]

While the Philippine Racing Commission regulates horse racing in the country, the Games and Amusement Board handles the betting aspects involving the discipline.^[16]

Dafabet is a privately owned online gambling company and leading Asian online gaming website based in Makati, Philippines. The website has offered sports betting, online casino, online poker, and other online activities since 2004. Although it has primarily served the Chinese and Southeast Asian markets, Dafabet maintains a strong presence in the UK use to its sponsorship by several football clubs such as Celtic FC, Sunderland FC, and Burnley FC.^[17]

PhilWeb Corporation, originally known as “South Seas Oil and Mineral Exploration Co. Inc.” began as a mining and exploration company in 1969. In 2000, the company, by now an Internet company known as “South Seas Natural Resources Inc.” began a major restructuring plan that called for changes in the company’s name, primary purpose, increase in capital stock, and the declassification of shares among other matters. Upon a Deed of Assignment with All-Acacia Resources Inc., the company turned over all rights to its mining claims and mining related assets on January 18, 2000. The company then changed its name to PhilWeb.Com Inc. (later changed to PhilWeb Corporation) in light of its new primary purpose as a gaming technology provider. Today, PhilWeb serves 70,000 account holders from their nationwide network of internet cafes, sports betting kiosks, and mobile games in the Philippines. The company’s reach expands throughout the Asia-Pacific region, serving customers in Guam, Timor Leste, and Cambodia.^[18]

SBOBET is an online sports bookmaker established in 2004 and operated by the First Cagayan Leisure & Resort Corporation. The company is also licensed and operates in Europe under Isle of Man. SBOBET offers betting on all major sports, online games, racing, financial betting, and poker. It offers all services in multiple languages so as to cater to international customers. In 2009 and 2010, SBOBET was awarded the “Asian Operator of the Year” award by eGaming Review at the EGR Awards^[19]. The company also ranked 11th on eGaming Review’s Power 50 Companies list, marking SBOBET as one of the world’s most influential operators.^[20]

Casinos are venues where people go to in order to engage in legal gambling activities usually for entertainment and earning’s sake. Gambling in casinos are usually played via cards and casino chips, slot machines, and more.

• Poker is a card game played on a poker table wherein each player is dealt with 5 cards and the player with the highest hand wins. There is a hierarchy of the kinds of poker hands that determine who the winner of the game is. The highest hand wins the game

An illegal numbers game where the winning combination is derived from the results of the last game of Jai Alai or the Special Llave portion or any result thereof based on any fictitious Jai Alai game consisting of ten (10) players pitted against one another, and its variants.

An illegal numbers game where the winning combination is derived from the last two (2) numbers of the first prize of the winning Sweepstakes ticket which comes out during the weekly draw of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), and its variants.

This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Gambling in the Philippines" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (July 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Betting on contests pitting two animals against one another in a fight to the death is a way of life for many males in the country's hinterlands.

• Year-round blood sports

Sabong or cockfighting

Every weekend, arenas across the Philippines are packed with thousands of men anxious to legally wager on fights featuring roosters with razor-sharp gaffs fitted to their legs. The sheer spectacle of such an event-with its fast pace, noise, gore, and crowd participation-has done much to establish cockfighting as the national sport of the Philippines.^[21]

• Blood sports during local feasts

1. Horse Fights by the T’boli of Lake Sebu in Southern Cotabato every September
2. Festival of the Bulls, the town of San Joaquin held in January

• Seasonal blood sports

Spider Wrestling

Season: Spider wrestling does not occur year round. It is a seasonal activity that typically begins during the rainy season when vegetation is lush and spiders are plentiful. From September through January, groups of boys can be seen roaming the countryside in search of the perfect wrestling spider. Invariably, this takes place outdoors since household spiders (gagambang bahay) are considered poor fighters. Hunts can last up to several hours and normally happen in the morning or late afternoon when spiders return to the center of their webs and are easily captured.

Gambling Behavior: As a form of petty gambling, spider fighting is simple and straightforward. Side bets and other wagers not directly related to the outcome of a bout tend to be rare. Matches can take place almost anywhere and require minimal cost to participate in them. Although most schoolboys have little in terms of material wealth, they rarely agree to a contest without something of value at stake. The primary wager is customarily between the two spider owners. These bets usually involve the exchange of money or the spiders themselves. When cash is wagered, amounts tend to be low. Most bets do not exceed P100, although some occasionally reach into the P1,000-P2,000 range. When fighting spiders are wagered, matches tend to be less serious and, as a rule, not permitted to continue to the death. Anyone can bet on a spider-wrestling contest. Much of the action surrounding a match takes place among the friends and classmates of those directly involved. Their participation adds an air of excitement that would otherwise be missed if wagering were limited strictly to spider owners. Spectators generally bet in small amounts, though sometimes friends will pool their funds to increase the size of a payoff. Since there are no bookies or odds-makers to influence the stakes of a contest, betting is usually a matter of personal preference; but sod pressure does exist for boys to wager on their bends' spiders. Given the short duration of most bouts, cash will change hands frequently. An implicit honor system is followed when it comes to collecting or paying bets. When participants are not well acquainted, money is usually entrusted with a neutral third party until a winner is declared. If a loser should try to renege on a bet, trouble is likely to occur.^[22]

The Philippines is rising steadily in the gaming industry, slowly establishing itself as one of the gambling capitals of Southeast Asia. It boasts more casinos than Macau, the gambling giant who receives most of its income from gambling operations.

In just Metro Manila, there are 20 casinos, all of which are essential for the country's tourism, entertainment, and leisure. Calabarzon, located south of Manila, has 5 casinos while the Visayas and Mindanao have around 10 gambling areas.^[23]

Gambling has contributed to the Philippines’ culture and identity ever since its introduction and rise in popularity in the country. Similar to other East and Southeast Asian countries, the Philippines has developed a reputation of a gambling society.^[24] This culture of gambling permeates various sectors of the Philippine society, most primarily the rural males. According to the social anthropologist, Per Binde, “Gambling is a social, cultural and economic phenomenon, a remarkably flexible way of redistributing wealth, which is embedded in the socio‐cultural systems of societies.”^[25]

For the Philippine nation, which is predominantly subscribed to the Catholic religion, the issue of gambling also has moral impacts. In January 2005, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines released a statement on their stand and collective policy for gambling.^[26]

Game of chances have served various purposes in the local life of Filipinos, including peer relations and as recreational activities. Although it was seen before as a platform for deviance and criminality, gambling has also evolved into a social activity since its legalization.

By INTERPOL definition, money laundering is "any act or attempted act to conceal or disguise the identity of illegally obtained proceeds so that they appear to have originated from legitimate sources".^[27] Large sums of money coming from gambling or any money from illegal gambling is considered as “dirty money”, and can be used to file money laundering cases. The U.S. Department of State said in its International Narcotics Control Strategy Report in March 2017 that “criminal groups already take advantage of Philippine casinos to transfer “illicit proceeds from the Philippines to offshore accounts,” and that the country’s gaming palaces have “high risks for money laundering.^[28]

One of the biggest money laundering cases in the Philippines so far happened in February 2016, known as the Bangladesh bank robbery or bank heist. $81 million of the money stolen from the Bangladesh Bank was laundered into casinos via transfer requests and via the SWIFT network. Another $850 million was supposed to be wired to personal bank accounts in the Philippines, but was blocked by authorities.^[29]

In 2012, Philippine lawmakers managed to exclude casinos from the roster of organizations required to report to the Anti-Money Laundering Council regarding suspicious transactions. However in May 2017, despite the lobbying of the gaming industry, the Philippine Congress, under the Duterte administration, approved an amendment to a money laundering law to cover gambling. Casinos would, under the proposed amendment, be required to report to the country's anti-money laundering body accumulated bets within a 24-hour period totalling 3 million pesos ($60,000).^[30]

According to its medical definition, gambling addiction or pathological gambling is the disorder of impulse control in which a person makes wagers of various types—in casinos, at horse races, to book-makers—which compromises, disrupts, or damages personal, family, or vocational pursuits.^[31] Psychiatrist Ivanhoe Escartin of the Philippine Psychiatric Association (PPA) said that winning in gambling can get players hooked because of the “pleasure” of winning, which they want to feel again. But even when losing, gambling can become a compulsive habit because the players tend to try to recoup their losses.^[32]

In the Philippines, PAGCOR is the government arm that regulates authorized gaming establishments around the country. It implements its Code of Practice for Responsible Gaming in all its PAGCOR-operated gaming areas and licensed entities in authorized gaming establishments to prevent gambling addiction and minimize potential harm to individual players and the community. This responsible gaming program includes training of gaming employees, limited access, probity measures, and advertising guidelines, among others.

Another intervention done by Philippine casinos under PAGCOR is the exclusion program, which prohibits problem gamers from all gaming venues or sites. Relatives of problem gamers or they themselves apply for the program in an attempt to prevent the worsening of gambling tendencies.^[33]

• Gambling in Manila
• Philippine Lottery Draw
• Bingo in the Philippines
• List of casinos in the Philippines
• Tlcbet

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