PAGCOR denies casino losses

The regulator of the Philippines gambling industry has pushed back against reports that its Manila Bay casino operation is a money pit, whilst the country’s mercurial presidents wants the regulator to do more to boost its gambling income.  

On Tuesday this week, the state-run Philippine Amusement and Gambling Corporation, PAGCOR, refuted a recent report which claimed the industry had lost 2.11billion. The report, which was written by the governments Commission on Audit (COA) detailed the alleged losses which were incurred by the PAGCOR-run Casino Filipino Manilla Bay over the past five years. 

In a statement issued by PAGCOR, it claimed that the report included loses by CF Pavilion, a separate and defunct body that did run the casinos until August 2017, when the new CG Manila Bay took over.  

In addition, PAGCOR claimed that the Manila bay property was actually making a profit if you discounted the mandated government contributions, national sports bodies, payments from the host community and the 5% franchise tax.  

In actual fact, PAGCOR claims that CF Manila Bay was reporting an average monthly income of nearly 13.4million in 2018. A sum that amounts to almost triple that of 2018. Furthermore, it anticipates that this figure will further increase thanks to cost controls and the expansion of VIP gambling revenue. It is expected that this income will come from the sub-leasing of the second floor of the property.

Meanwhile, the stellar overall revenue figures that PAGCOR has reported this year haven’t gone unnoticed by the country’s President Rodrigo Duterte. On Monday, Duterte used his State of the Nation address to praise PAGCOR’s contributions to the country’s budget so far this year, which ranked highest among all government owned and controlled corporations at P16.2b.

Clearly excited and enthused by this, Duterte urged the PAGCOR chairperson to do more to “push gambling”, something that is likely to come as a shock for most people. The president’s sudden fondness for gambling comes at odds with everything that he has said since he took office in 2016.