{"id":14342,"date":"2021-02-08T16:07:48","date_gmt":"2021-02-08T16:07:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=14342"},"modified":"2026-04-23T22:01:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T01:01:03","slug":"philippines-online-cockfighting-eats-into-lottery-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/philippines-online-cockfighting-eats-into-lottery-sales","title":{"rendered":"Philippines: online cockfighting eats into lottery sales"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office has seen lower sales since online cockfighting took off in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>The Philippines.-\u00a0<strong>Betting on online cockfights<\/strong>, known as e-sabong, has rocketed in the Philippines since <strong>cockpits were closed to spectators at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although its legal status remains unclear, it seems it may be <strong>eating into the country&#8217;s lottery sales<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Royina Garma, general manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, said t<strong>he charity agency\u2019s revenue collection had dropped by 57.68 per cent, from P44.02bn (US$92bn) in 2019 to P18.63bn (US$39m) last year<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said: &#8220;As far as I know, <strong>cockpit is legal because they have permits from local governments. But online cockfights are illegal.<\/strong>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the Philippines, <strong>the cockfighting industry is believed to be worth just over US$1bn per year<\/strong>, according to the country\u2019s Games and Amusement Board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The government appears to have plans to legalise the activity. Andrea Domingo, <em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/pagcor-revenue-down-60-in-2020\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Philippines Amusement and Gambling Corporation<\/strong><\/a><\/em> chairwoman, said in December <strong>that she hoped the Philippines could become a leader in online cockfighting<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office has seen lower sales since online cockfighting took off in 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":14355,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) has reported a significant revenue decline, attributing it to the surge in online cockfighting (e-sabong) since 2020. Despite its ambiguous legal status, e-sabong is impacting state-sanctioned lottery sales, prompting the government to explore potential legalization and regulation.","focusai_entities":"Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, Royina Garma, Games and Amusement Board, Andrea Domingo, Philippines Amusement and Gambling Corporation","focusai_location":"Philippines","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.95), regulator (0.98), compliance_legal (0.92), operator_casino (0.9), payments_fraud_aml (0.88), investor_analyst (0.96), supplier_vendor (0.85), journalist_researcher (0.93)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"E-sabong Legalization Impact?","query":"What are the projected GGR and NGR impacts on the broader Philippine iGaming market if e-sabong is formally legalized and integrated into the regulatory framework?"},{"label":"PCSO Revenue Recovery?","query":"What strategic initiatives is the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) considering to mitigate revenue erosion and regain market share from the rise of unregulated e-sabong?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[163,16333],"tags":[3573,405],"class_list":["post-14342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-lottery","tag-pagcor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14342"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14391,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14342\/revisions\/14391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}