Pagcor: Online gaming transactions down 50% after BSP directive

MANILA, Philippines — Online gaming transactions have fallen by as much as 50 percent since the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) ordered e-wallets to remove links to gambling sites from their platforms, according to the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor).

Unfortunately, said Pagcor chair Alejandro Tengco, the agency also noted an uptick in users of illegal gaming platforms since the BSP’s directive last week.

BSP Memorandum No. 2025-29, issued Aug. 14 by BSP Deputy Governor Mamerto Tangonan, particularly instructed e-wallet platforms to remove their in-app features promoting or allowing users to access e-gambling sites.

READ: BSP: E-wallets must ‘unlink’ from e-gambling sites

Covered by the memo are e-wallets, banks (through their payment apps and websites), and other supervised entities.

“It’s really hard to go after them (illegal sites),” Tengco told Akbayan Rep. Chel Diokno during the House committee on appropriations hearing for the 2026 budget on Wednesday. “But I can assure that the licensed ones under our jurisdiction followed the BSP directive.”

“Currently, 60 percent of what we see in the (online gaming industry) are illegal operators, meaning, those who operate outside the Philippines,” he added. “They operate in countries like Russia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Cambodia…it’s really hard to go after them.”

These illegal, foreign operators, Tengco added, “give so much room to consumers so that they would get more addicted…for example, if you deposit P100,000 on their platform, they give four times, five times bonuses.”

READ: Gambling sites start moving to other apps

Based on the list they collate every day, Tengco said there were about 12,000 illegal online gaming sites, far dwarfing the 77 licensed ones in their ambit.

FPJ Panday Bayanihan Rep. Brian Poe listed some such sites, including Poppo Live, Awaas, Gemgala, and Hichat, all of which advertise themselves as game and social applications.

Tengco admitted that these apps “still operate in the Philippines, and these are part of the 12,000 sites we have reported…to the credit of the DICT, CICC, National Bureau of Investigation, they have put down 8,000 of the almost 12,000 illegal sites we have reported to them.”

“I can assure you—there are far more illegal sites than legal sites,” he told Poe. “Everything we hear about, kids who are addicted, I can assure you that (these illegal sites that are unregulated) are the cause of this problem now.”

Tengco emphasized—as he had during the debates about Philippine offshore gaming operators (Pogos) last year—that Pagcor has no power to shut down illegal operators.

“Our role is simply to identify and hopefully the law enforcement agencies can move to shut them down,” he added. /jpv

(2025/08/20-11:37)

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