{"id":38837,"date":"2016-08-24T18:42:54","date_gmt":"2016-08-25T01:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=38837"},"modified":"2016-08-24T18:43:50","modified_gmt":"2016-08-25T01:43:50","slug":"duterte-takes-u-turn-online-gambling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/duterte-takes-u-turn-online-gambling\/","title":{"rendered":"Duterte Takes Shock U-turn on Online Gambling"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Duterte
\u201cGamble until you die. I do not really care,” said Philippine President Duterte Wednesday, clearly in a more forgiving mood. (Image: rapeller.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/i>Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte\u2019s hardline crackdown on online gambling<\/a> took an unexpected twist this this week.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday the government\u2019s gambling operator-regulator, PAGCOR, announced that it was prepared to license online gambling firms that targeted \u201cnon-locals\u201d and that it was in the process of \u201creadying application forms.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know yet how saleable it is; there might be no takers,\u201d PAGCOR chief Andrea Domingo admitted to Reuters.\u00a0<\/i>\u201cOr there could be many applicants,\u201d she added brightly.<\/p>\n

PAGCOR hopes that the new licenses might offset some of the revenue lost by Duterte\u2019s systematic dismantling of the country\u2019s online gambling giant, Philweb. Until recently, Philweb operated 299 online gambling boutique caf\u00e9s throughout the Philippines<\/a>, which offered online video poker and slots via roughly 8,000 terminals.<\/p>\n

Last year the company\u2019s operations contributed around $12.2 million in taxes to the government.<\/p>\n

Zero-tolerance<\/b><\/h2>\n

Duterte swept to power in June on an agenda that promised to wipe out crime and drugs. Literally. The president has leant his support to vigilante death squads that carry out the extra-judicial killings of criminals and habitual drug users with impunity.<\/p>\n

\n

Once sworn in, he immediately set his sights on the Philippine online gambling industry, and in particular Philweb and its chairman, the billionaire Robert Ongpin.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ongpin was representative of the \u201coligarchs,\u201d which he believed were \u201cembedded in government\u201d and practiced \u201cinfluence peddling.\u201d Meanwhile, said Duterte, online gambling \u201chad to stop\u201d because too many Filipinos were choosing to gamble instead of working for a living. It appeared that PAGCOR was taken completely by surprise by the announcement.<\/p>\n

Restoration <\/b><\/h2>\n

At the beginning of the month Philweb was forced to announce it would wind down its operations, due to the non-renewal of its license by PAGCOR. Ongpin stepped down as president of the company and, as a last-ditch bid for approval, offered to transfer almost all of his majority stake in the company to PAGCOR, in an attempt to save the business and its 6,000 employees. PAGCOR was forced to refuse.<\/p>\n

But on Wednesday, Duterte was clearly in a more tolerant mood.<\/p>\n

“Pay the correct taxes… Gamble until you die. I do not really care,” he announced magnanimously.<\/p>\n

Duterte is now prepared to restore online gambling provided\u00a0\u201ctaxes are correctly collected and they [online gambling cafes] are situated or placed in districts where gambling is allowed, which means to say, not within the church distance or schools.”<\/p>\n

“I was mad because even the youth are gambling and there was no way of collecting the proper taxes,” he admitted.<\/p>\n

Whether this means he is prepared to permit Philweb to continue its operations as before is currently unclear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte\u2019s hardline crackdown on online gambling took an unexpected twist this this week. On Tuesday the government\u2019s gambling operator-regulator, PAGCOR, announced that it was prepared to license online gambling firms that targeted \u201cnon-locals\u201d and that it was in the process of \u201creadying application forms.\u201d \u201cWe don\u2019t know yet how saleable it is; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":38838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,13,61],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPhillipine President Duterte Takes Shock U-turn on Online Gambling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Philippine president Duterte today offered to restore online gambling to the country.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Phillipine President Duterte Takes Shock U-turn on Online Gambling\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Philippine president Duterte today offered to restore online gambling to the country.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/duterte-takes-u-turn-online-gambling\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-08-25T01:42:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-08-25T01:43:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/duterte-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"444\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Casino.org Staff Writer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Casino.org Staff Writer\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/duterte-takes-u-turn-online-gambling\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/duterte-takes-u-turn-online-gambling\/\",\"name\":\"Phillipine President Duterte Takes Shock U-turn on Online Gambling\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/duterte-takes-u-turn-online-gambling\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/duterte-takes-u-turn-online-gambling\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/duterte-1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-08-25T01:42:54+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-08-25T01:43:50+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/8c48bf89dc86da77b4d856c7b3b78d77\"},\"description\":\"Philippine president Duterte today offered to restore online gambling to the country.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/duterte-takes-u-turn-online-gambling\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/duterte-takes-u-turn-online-gambling\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/duterte-takes-u-turn-online-gambling\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/duterte-1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/duterte-1.jpg\",\"width\":640,\"height\":444,\"caption\":\"\u201cGamble until you die. 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