{"id":5660,"date":"2020-04-16T09:56:03","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T09:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=5660"},"modified":"2026-04-24T06:04:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T09:04:37","slug":"philippines-pogos-gaming-activities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/philippines-pogos-gaming-activities","title":{"rendered":"Philippines: POGOs to restart activities at the end of April"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Despite a number of controversies during the Coronavirus crisis, POGOs are expecting business as usual once the lockdown it lifted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Philippines.- POGO operators expect to be able to resume business when the current Coronavirus lockdown in the country is lifted on April 30. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cPOGOs will continue as long they are allowed by law. We will just continue our initiative to regulate and ensure that these firms are compliant with labor and immigration laws as well as payment of taxes,\u201d Labour Undersecretary, Dominique Tutay, told local press.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>POGOs have been hit with <a href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/philippines-senators-pogo-gaming\"><em><strong>a number of controversies since the start of the Coronavirus outbreak<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, such as accusations of activities related to sex trafficking, botched work visas, money-laundering, and kidnapping.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tutay said the department was currently investigating up to 2,000 foreign nationals that were allegedly working in POGOs without the required foreign work visa.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last month, the labor department also found 4,000 foreign nationals in POGO firms that were using the same Tax Identification Numbers in their work visa.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These concerns were set to be discussed and resolved in March, but the investigations were suspended due to the lockdown in Luzon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite a number of controversies during the Coronavirus crisis, POGOs are expecting business as usual once the lockdown it lifted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2288,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) anticipate resuming operations post-lockdown on April 30, despite ongoing controversies including allegations of sex trafficking, money laundering, and widespread labor and immigration law non-compliance. The Labour Department affirms its commitment to regulating POGOs and ensuring adherence to labor, immigration, and tax laws, with investigations into thousands of foreign nationals working illegally currently suspended. This situation highlights the persistent regulatory challenges within the Philippine iGaming sector.","focusai_entities":"POGO operators, Dominique Tutay, Labour Undersecretary, Labour Department","focusai_location":"Philippines, Luzon","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 (0.9), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"POGO Regulatory Outlook","query":"What specific regulatory reforms or enhanced enforcement mechanisms are anticipated from the Philippine Labour Department to address the identified labor, immigration, and tax compliance deficiencies among POGO operators post-lockdown?"},{"label":"AML & Illicit Activities","query":"How will the Philippine government's investigations into alleged money laundering and sex trafficking within the POGO sector impact the B2B\/B2C licensing frameworks and the broader governance structure for iGaming operations in the country?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,161,167,156,158,16333],"tags":[128,1205,337],"class_list":["post-5660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-daily-news","category-news-region","category-regulation-news","category-slider-home","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-philippines","tag-pogo","tag-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5660","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5660"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5677,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5660\/revisions\/5677"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}