Philippines confirms closure of largest offshore gaming operator hub
The offshore gaming hub operated on a 33-hectare property in the province of Cavite.
The Philippines.- Authorities have confirmed that what’s been described as the biggest offshore gaming operator compound in the Philippines is no longer operational. Operations ceased on November 30 and the site has now been inspected.
The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) secretary Jonvic Remulla, along with presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) executive director under secretary Gilbert Cruz, Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR) chairman and CEO Alejandro Tengco and Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Rommel Francisco Marbil visited the site today (December 17) to check that it had been vacated.
Remulla told reporters: “As promised, we visited the area by December to see that everything is closed. We will follow the president’s (Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.) directive that all offshore gaming operators must be closed. Per the local government unit administrator, they inspected the facility on the last week of November and there are no more operations here.”
The compound has 57 buildings, including dormitories, cafés, grocery stores, clinics, restaurants, spas and beauty salons. Some 30,000 people had been employed at the site, around half of them Filipinos.
Remulla said The Department of Labor and Employment and Department of Trade and Industry were setting up job fairs for displaced Filipino workers so they can find new jobs. He said he believed foreign workers had all been repatriated.
On Friday (December 13), Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. warned that anyone who tries to ignore the incoming ban on offshore gaming will be prosecuted. Writing on social media after a meeting with a task force charged with shutting offshore gaming operators, he said: “All the licenses of offshore gaming and IGL operators nationwide have been cancelled. They will never be allowed to ravage our country again. Anyone who will conduct illegal operations will face the full force of the law.”
