China respects Philippine sovereignty of POGOs

It is being reported in the local media that following a meeting in Beijing last Thursday, the Chinese authorities have confirmed that they do respect the sovereignty of the Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators to issue their own licenses. The meeting was between President Rodrigo Duterte and China’s President Xi Jinping and the comments come from the Philippine’s Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez.

Over the past few weeks, the Chinese authorities have issued stark criticisms of the behaviours of POGOs and has raised concerns that they have been targeting Chinese customers. According the Chinese authorities, they believed that this behaviour was enticing them to engage in domestically ‘criminal’ behaviour.

Macau is the only place in China where casino gambling is legal, a point reportedly made by President Xi during the Sino-Philippine summit in Beijing.

However, Mr Dominguez, who reportedly attended the bilateral meeting, has commented that Mr Xi did welcome the current pause by the Philippines in issuing new POGO licences, but would prefer that China’s neighbour ban such business.

Last month, it was reported that there were currently 58 licensed POGO’s within the country and that there were a further 3 waiting for their licenses to be approved.

A spokesperson for Mr Duterte, Salvador Panelo, was cited by the Philippine Daily Inquirer as saying that he made no specific response during the bilateral meeting to Mr Xi’s stance on POGOs. But he said the Philippine leader would probably want to study the subject further.

“We have to look into what we will lose if we stop online gaming. Will it affect the [national] budget?” Mr Panelo said, noting that the country’s public finance authorities would have to be consulted about the potential impact on national revenue should POGO practice is stopped.

During the first half of the year, the gross income from regulatory fees from offshore gaming operations realised by the country’s casino regulator, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation – known as Pagcor – was just under PHP2.7 billion (US$51.5 million).

According to the data revealed last month by the regulator, this was about 7 percent of Pagcor’s total first-half gross income of just under PHP36.6 billion, according to data released last month by the gaming regulator.

Before the meeting took place last week, Jose Santa Romana, the Philippine ambassador to China, had said that only the Philippine authorities would decide if his country would or would not allow the POGOs to continue to operate. He further added that it was not for China to decide.

However, alongside this, the Prime Minister of Cambodia has recently fallen under the pressure of China and made the decision to act on concerns raised by the Chinese. It has been reported that, Cambodia’s Prime Minister, Hun Sen, ordered authorities there to end all online and arcade gambling by the end of this year in a bid to safeguard what he termed security and public order.

Last month, Cambodia confirmed that it was to stop issuing a new online gaming licences and let the current ones lapse when they expired. Chinese state news agency Xinhua had reported around that time that “foreign criminals” had been running what it termed “underground online gambling businesses” via Cambodia, targeting people outside that country.