{"id":20103,"date":"2021-07-09T11:32:28","date_gmt":"2021-07-09T11:32:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=20103"},"modified":"2026-04-23T17:45:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T20:45:25","slug":"pagcor-separates-teams-to-increase-control-over-gambling-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/pagcor-separates-teams-to-increase-control-over-gambling-operations","title":{"rendered":"PAGCOR separates teams to increase control over gambling operations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Philippine regulator has established two separate teams to supervise online gaming and land-based casino operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The Philippines.- The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR)\u00a0<\/strong>has decided to split its teams in two in order to have more precise control over gambling operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The regulator will dedicate separate teams to online gaming <\/strong>and land-based casino operations, following the approval of the Philippine’s first online gaming licences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement Department \u2013 Integrated Resorts<\/strong> (CMED-IR) <\/strong>was previously responsible for all licensed casinos in Entertainment City, the Clark group of casinos and Thunderbird casinos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s now been split into two different teams: the CMED-Internet Gaming<\/strong>, which is in charge of monitoring online gambling operations, and the CMED-Integrated Resorts<\/strong> for land-based gambling venues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CMED-Internet Gaming will also oversee e-sabong operations. In June,\u00a0PAGCOR<\/a>\u00a0granted permits to four online cockfight betting firms to operate in the country.\u00a0The Philippines\u2019\u00a0cockfighting industry is believed to be worth just over US$1bn per year<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte<\/strong>, has recently said that he allowed online gambling<\/a> because the country needs money to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the Philippine News Agency, Duterte said: \u201cWe don\u2019t have money\u2026 Now that we need money, the most sensible thing is really just to encourage those activities<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In May, PAGCOR reported that Philippine GGR<\/a> was down 43.9 per cent year-on-year, <\/strong>mainly due to the impact of Covid-19 restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Philippines placed on FATF \u201cgrey list\u201d again<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF)<\/a>, the Paris-based inter-governmental agency that monitors controls on anti-money laundering and terrorist financing, has placed the Philippines <\/strong>back on its \u201cgrey list\u201d of untrustworthy jurisdictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite new legislation in the Philippines, the FATF said the country needs to introduce more controls over risks associated with junket operators<\/strong>.\u00a0The country needs to take further measures in several areas as demonstrating that supervisors are using AML\/CFT controls to mitigate risks associated with casino junkets<\/strong>, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country\u2019s Anti-Money Laundering Council <\/strong>said: \u201cThe mere identification of the Philippines as having \u2018jurisdiction under increased monitoring\u2019 with serious AML\/CTF deficiencies does not automatically mean the imposition of countermeasures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is only when the country fails to meet the deadlines will the FATF call on countries to impose countermeasures against the Philippines.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to be removed from the grey list, the Philippines must implement the action plan\u00a0<\/strong>recommended by FATF within the prescribed timeframe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Philippine regulator has established two separate teams to supervise online gaming and land-based casino operations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":20104,"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 Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR) has restructured its compliance monitoring, establishing separate teams for online gaming and land-based casino operations to enhance oversight and revenue generation post-COVID-19. Concurrently, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has placed the Philippines on its \"grey list\" due to identified AML\/CFT deficiencies, particularly concerning casino junket operations, necessitating urgent implementation of an action plan.","focusai_entities":"Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR), Rodrigo Duterte, Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Anti-Money Laundering Council","focusai_location":"Philippines, Paris","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), affiliate_publisher (0.7), marketing_crm (0.7), payments_fraud_aml (1.0), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"PAGCOR Restructuring Impact?","query":"What specific operational and compliance adjustments will B2B and B2C licensees need to implement to align with PAGCOR's newly segmented CMED-Internet Gaming and CMED-Integrated Resorts oversight frameworks?"},{"label":"FATF Grey List Impact?","query":"Beyond the identified junket operator risks, what are the precise implications of the FATF grey-listing on the Philippines' capital markets, international banking relationships, and the cost of doing business for iGaming entities?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,158,16333],"tags":[4138,405],"class_list":["post-20103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regulation-news","category-slider-home","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-online-gambling","tag-pagcor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20103","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=20103"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20123,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20103\/revisions\/20123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}