Philippine online gambling leader DigiPlus Interactive is setting up a physical chess piece along the Manila Bay coastline. According to local media, the company is negotiating with the San Miguel Group's related asset party to acquire the landmark five-star Diamond Hotel Philippines in Manila Bay, intending to embed it into a comprehensive gambling resort project with a total investment of about one billion US dollars. This hotel, which has about 480 rooms, is located in the core section of Roxas Boulevard and has long been an important target of high-end hotel assets along Manila Bay. Just one street away from the Diamond Hotel is the New Coast Hotel Manila, which DigiPlus previously intended to control through the acquisition of convertible bonds from the Hong Kong-listed International Entertainment Group, which has casino facilities inside. If the two transactions are ultimately completed, these two properties on the Manila Bay coastline are expected to be connected by aerial corridors or rooftop passages, forming a contiguous unified operation entertainment complex.
Offline chess games unfold, DigiPlus bets on physical casinos
DigiPlus has obtained a temporary license from the Philippine Entertainment and Gaming Corporation, allowing it to conduct long-term gambling operations until 2033. The company turned in a solid performance sheet in 2025: a net profit of 12.6 billion pesos and a cash reserve of over 23.4 billion pesos, providing ample financial ammunition for its large-scale expansion. Market analysts believe that the company is shifting from a business model solely reliant on online platforms to a more localized operation of physical casinos and resorts with local pricing power. Meanwhile, competitors like Belle Corp are also accelerating the development of integrated resort projects in the Clark area, and the industry landscape is gradually forming a situation where online giants and traditional offline developers are directly confronting each other on the physical casino track.
Unlike DigiPlus's expansion paths in South Africa and Brazil, this acquisition intention for Diamond Hotel is entirely focused on the domestic core market. Outside of Entertainment City in Manila, the Manila Bay coastline is becoming a new center of contention for gambling capital in the Philippines.
PASA official website continues to track the strategic transformation and asset acquisition dynamics of gambling operators in the Asia-Pacific region, noting that DigiPlus's acquisition negotiations mark a turning point for the Philippine local online gambling giant from online user assets to deep penetration of offline heavy assets. Whether this strategic transformation can successfully land on the Manila Bay coastline will provide a reference sample worth marking for similar platforms' transformation paths.
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