Gaming revenue up, PH jobs secure despite influx of Chinese online workers–Pagcor

The Philippine gaming industry is expected to rake in more revenues this year and next due to the continued attractiveness of integrated resorts to both foreign and local players, as well as the growing contribution of proceeds from online gaming, the country’s top casino regulator said yesterday.

According to Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. chair Andrea Domingo, gross gaming revenue (GGR) of the growing gaming sector will likely hit P192 billion by the end of 2018. This marks an improvement over the P186 billion that the agency was forecasting for this year.

At the new projected level, the GGR—defined as the net difference between all bets made in the local gaming industry and all the winnings paid out to players—would have risen 14 percent from the 2017 level.

“Our performance this year is better than expected for both the private integrated resorts and the Pagcor-owned casinos,” Domingo said, adding that the online gaming sector was also experiencing substantial growth in bets from overseas players.

The Pagcor chief also predicted that the gross gaming revenue of the industry would rise further to P217 billion by 2019, or a yearly increase of 13 percent.

Speaking at the weekly Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum in Malate, Manila, Domingo also assured the public that Filipino workers were not at a disadvantage in the online gaming sector amid the influx of Chinese nationals in the country.

She said foreign nationals were not taking jobs away from Filipino workers since only three-fourths of workers employed by online gaming operators were foreigners.

This was echoed by Pagcor vice president for online gaming Jose Tria who stressed that licensed online gaming firms employed at least one Filipino for every four foreign nationals.

Domingo said local jobs given to Chinese nationals were “distinct,” which required linguistic expertise in the complex languages of China. While there are Filipinos who could speak Mandarin, Cantonese or Hokkien, she said their diction and accent were different from that of the mainland Chinese.