Philippine finance secretary Benjamin Diokno has again advocated for the privatisation of PAGCOR’s casinos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
The Philippines.- Benjamin Diokno<\/strong>, the Philippines’ finance secretary has insisted that the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp’s (PAGCOR) cannot maintain its dual role as gaming regulator and casino operator. He said president Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr “knows it’s not smart to have the same operator and (regulator)”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Diokno said privatisation <\/strong>would not require new legislation. He said: They can turn it over to us. It can also be done through the Governance Commission for Government-Owned or -Controlled Corporations (GCG). PAGCOR is a corporation. What GCG usually does is to propose an executive order.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Department of Finance has long proposed the privatisation of PAGCOR’s gaming operations, and PAGCOR CEO\u00a0Alejandro Tengco<\/strong> has confirmed that the regulator and operator\u00a0will sell its casinos.<\/a> It anticipates making approximately US$1.47bn from the sale of its 41 casinos.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, PAGCOR has announced\u00a0plans to launch an online casino<\/a>\u00a0by the first quarter of the upcoming year. Tengco said the online Casino Filipino would employ virtual reality technology that can simulate the sights and sounds of a physical casino, offering a realistic and immersive gaming experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n PAGCOR reported revenue of PHP2.59bn (US$47m)<\/a>. Gaming operations and regulatory fees from licensees accounted for PHP34.12bn, or 94.3 per cent, of PAGCOR\u2019s revenue and rose 38.03 per cent when compared to last year. Income was up 35.64 per cent in year-on-year terms<\/a> from PHP26.7bn to PHP36.21bn (US$662m). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Philippine finance secretary Benjamin Diokno has again advocated for the privatisation of PAGCOR’s casinos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":34645,"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 Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno reiterates the imperative for PAGCOR's privatization, citing the inherent conflict in its dual role as regulator and operator. PAGCOR CEO Alejandro Tengco confirms plans to divest its 41 land-based casinos, projecting US$1.47bn from the sale, while simultaneously announcing the launch of an online Casino Filipino utilizing VR technology by Q1 next year. This strategic shift aims to streamline governance and enhance market efficiency.","focusai_entities":"Benjamin Diokno, Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (PAGCOR), Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr, Governance Commission for Government-Owned or -Controlled Corporations (GCG), Department of Finance, Alejandro Tengco","focusai_location":"Philippines","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (1.0), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (1.0), affiliate_publisher (0.7), product_ux (0.8), tech_data (0.8), marketing_crm (0.7), payments_fraud_aml (0.7), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.9), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Privatization Timeline?","query":"What is the projected timeline for the complete privatization of PAGCOR's 41 land-based casinos, and what specific governance frameworks will facilitate this transition?"},{"label":"Online Casino Strategy?","query":"How will PAGCOR's new online Casino Filipino, leveraging VR technology, differentiate itself in the competitive iGaming landscape, and what is its projected GGR contribution?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,158,16333],"tags":[23911,405],"class_list":["post-777007527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regulation-news","category-slider-home","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-gambling-regulation","tag-pagcor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777007527","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=777007527"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777007527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777007573,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777007527\/revisions\/777007573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777007527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777007527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777007527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}