Pagcor rejects Philweb’s SMS lotto plan

THE STATE-controlled Philippine Amusement & Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) has officially rejected the proposal of gaming technology service provider Philweb Corp. to roll out a mobile phone-based lottery platform.

In a letter dated Sept. 20 to Philweb, Pagcor chair Andrea Domingo said that after a review of the recommendations of pertinent departments and deliberations of the board, it was decided that the proposal be rejected at this time.

Domingo noted that the current policy of the government was to “strictly regulate and ensure non-proliferation of gambling avenues which are accessible to lower income brackets of society.”

The mobile phone-based lottery platform, seen to generate P50 to P100 billion in potential annual revenues, had been pitched by Philweb president Dennis Valdes as a way to somehow compensate for revenues foregone from the scrapping of a nationwide network of e-Games.

With over 100 million cell phones and 1.5 billion texts per day, Philweb had said a mobile lottery would be lucrative even as the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) would continue to operate its lotto system. The PCSO’s existing lotto – which is done through sale of thermal paper-printed tickets in some 4,000 outlets nationwide – earns around P30 billion per year but bettors are required to physically queue at each outlet in order to purchase their tickets./rga