The Philippine government has recently intensified its regulation of the online gambling industry, causing widespread concern in the sector. Juan Paolo Colet, Managing Director of Chinabank Capital, pointed out that this round of policy upgrades will ultimately strengthen the market dominance of large platforms, while small, single-operation mode enterprises will face severe pressure.
The current regulatory enhancement measures include: the central bank's suggestion to set daily consumption limits, user usage time restrictions, and payment channel reviews as three core control mechanisms; the Ministry of Finance is also studying the possibility of raising the tax rate related to online gambling. Analysts say this could be the most profound reform affecting the gambling ecosystem following the POGO restriction policy.
However, Colet warns that despite the new regulations aiming to curb addiction and illegal activities, the side effects cannot be ignored. He states, "The stricter the regulations, the more likely it is to push users towards underground platforms, rather than turning to legal casinos."
In the first half of 2025, the Philippines' gambling revenue reached $3.8 billion, with online platforms contributing up to 53%. If this segment is restricted while physical casinos have not fully recovered, overall industry growth may be limited.
It is worth noting that after POGO was tightened, many large casinos continued to perform poorly. Multiple sources within the industry confirmed that POGO had brought significant traffic and revenue to physical casinos, and the new policy could exacerbate the situation.
In terms of tax policy, the Philippines' gambling tax rate remains attractive compared to its Asian neighbors. Colet suggests that the corporate tax rate for online gambling companies should be set around 10% to balance tax objectives and investment returns.
In terms of regulatory implementation, he emphasizes the need to focus on two key elements: one is to strengthen the identity and age verification system to strictly prohibit underage gambling; the other is to set a practical consumption limit to avoid pushing users towards illegal channels due to overly strict restrictions.
Most crucially, Colet explicitly opposes a complete ban on online gambling. He believes that such a move would weaken national fiscal revenue and simultaneously foster underground criminal activities such as money laundering and fraud, causing a sharp rise in social costs.
For companies like Bloomberry that have entered the online gambling field, he believes the short-term risks are still manageable, but market expectations should be adjusted to a more conservative level until the policy is clearly implemented.
The Philippine gambling regulatory agency PAGCOR once declared its goal: to surpass Singapore by 2025 and become the second largest gambling market in Asia. However, if policies are inconsistent and regulation is unbalanced, this vision may be difficult to achieve. The future fate of the gambling industry depends on how precisely policies are implemented and how well development and control are balanced.
