{"id":33828,"date":"2022-09-27T07:24:59","date_gmt":"2022-09-27T10:24:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=33828"},"modified":"2026-04-23T04:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T07:32:12","slug":"pagcor-revokes-175-pogo-licences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/pagcor-revokes-175-pogo-licences","title":{"rendered":"PAGCOR revokes 175 POGO licences"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The POGOS employ about 40,000 Chinese nationals in the Philippines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>The Philippines.- The Philippine News Agency has revealed that the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR)<strong> <\/strong>has revoked the licences of <strong>175 Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs)<\/strong> as of September 14. Together they employed around 40,000 Chinese nationals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A week ago, Justice secretary&nbsp;<strong>Jesus Crispin Remulla&nbsp;<\/strong>said that starting from October 1,&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/the-philippines-to-deport-nearly-300-pogo-employees\" target=\"_blank\">the government would deport 281 Chinese citizens<\/a>&nbsp;who were illegally employed by online gambling operators. The Philippines now expects 3,000 to 4,000 more to be repatriated by mid-October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mico Clavano IV, Department of Justice (DOJ) assistant spokesperson, said that the National Bureau of Investigation is investigating more reports of POGOs operating without licences and is monitoring social media posts about possible crimes, including &#8220;alarming&#8221; videos and pictures about &#8220;murder, kidnapping and prostitution in POGOs.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Clavano said that Chinese nationals may stay at their hotels at their own expense while the DOJ processes identification papers. The repatriations come after <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/china-to-cooperate-with-philippines-battle-against-pogo-crimes\" target=\"_blank\">Remulla and the Chinese ambassador<\/a>&nbsp;Zhou Zhiyong held a meeting to discuss enhance cooperation between China and the Philippines to combat crimes associated with POGOs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Senate leader presents bill to ban online gambling in the Philippines<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Senate majority leader&nbsp;<strong>Joel Villanueva<\/strong>&nbsp;has introduced Senate Bill 1281 seeking to ban all types of online gaming in the Philippines, including POGOs and PIGOs (offshore and domestic betting and wagering). If the law is passed, anyone who engages in online gambling could face jail time and a fine of up to PHP500,000 (US$8,700).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Villanueva argued that \u201cthe consequences of gambling and online gambling are too serious to ignore.&nbsp;<strong>The cost of gambling is no longer limited to the loss of money<\/strong>, but extends to the loss of value and life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The POGOS employ about 40,000 Chinese nationals in the Philippines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":26853,"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 Corporation (PAGCOR) has revoked 175 Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) licenses, impacting approximately 40,000 Chinese nationals, with the Department of Justice initiating deportations for illegally employed individuals. Concurrently, a Senate bill has been introduced to ban all forms of online gambling in the Philippines, signaling a significant regulatory shift and potential market exit for the entire sector.","focusai_entities":"Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR), Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs), Justice secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, Department of Justice (DOJ), Mico Clavano IV, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), Chinese ambassador Zhou Zhiyong, Senate majority leader Joel Villanueva, Senate Bill 1281, Philippine Inland Gaming Operators (PIGOs)","focusai_location":"Philippines, China","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (1.0), affiliate_publisher (0.8), marketing_crm (0.7), payments_fraud_aml (0.8), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (1.0), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"POGO Market Impact","query":"What is the estimated economic impact on the Philippine economy, particularly in real estate and employment, following the mass POGO license revocations and deportations?"},{"label":"Online Gambling Ban Outlook","query":"What is the legislative timeline and political likelihood of Senate Bill 1281 passing, and what are the potential implications for both offshore (POGO) and domestic (PIGO) online gambling operators in the Philippines?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,16333],"tags":[405,15789],"class_list":["post-33828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-pagcor","tag-pogos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33828","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=33828"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33850,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33828\/revisions\/33850"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}