MANILA, Philippines--The plan of listed IT gaming firm PhilWeb Corp. to operate an SMS-based lotto betting system will allow more people to participate in lotteries and will result in higher revenue for the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), the company said on Friday.

More importantly, however, the scheme is above board and does not infringe on any existing agreements that PCSO has with its present lotto equipment providers, company president Dennis O. Valdes said in an e-mail to the Inquirer.

Valdes made the statement in reaction to last Wednesday?s Biz Buzz column, which said that some of PCSO?s partners, like Prime Gaming Management Corp. and Pacific Online, are opposing the nascent deal between the state-run lotto operator and the company led by businessman Roberto V. Ongpin.

?Neither PGMC, which has the PCSO lotto betting machine franchise for Luzon, nor Pacific Online, which has the PCSO franchise for Visayas and Mindanao, are IT firms,? Valdes said. ?They have no online betting business and are certainly not IT firms. The existing contractual relationship with PCSO by both PGMC and Pacific Online is purely for the supply of lotto betting machines, which PCSO leases from them.?

He said neither firm has a basis for claiming that ?their existing contracts entitle them to require PCSO to give them exclusivity or even priority for any other system of accepting lotto bets, other than for the supply of betting machines.?

Under the PhilWeb-led project, lotto bettors may be able to place numbered bets through any mobile phone that uses the networks of either Smart Communications Inc., Globe Telecom Inc. or Sun Cellular.

Valdes said it is ?understandable? that PGMC and Pacific Online would oppose PhilWeb?s text lotto project.

?But regrettably, neither one of them possess the legal basis nor the technology and the experience in organizing and launching text lotto for PCSO,? he explained. ?In fact, we understand that for several years now, PCSO has been pushing both companies to get into text lotto, but so far no progress has been made.? Daxim L. Lucas