Philippine online gambling licensees won’t be capped at 50

The Philippines’ gaming regulator has added more names to its list of approved online gambling operators, ensuring that its previously suggested cap of 50 licensees no longer applies.

The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) updated its official list of Philippine Offshore Gambling Operator (POGO) licensees, which the regulator began issuing in September 2016 in a bid to exert tighter control over the country’s burgeoning online gambling industry.

As of June, PAGCOR said it had issued 42 POGO licenses, but the updated list shows a total of 51 licenses issued as of October 30. PAGCOR had previously suggested that it could cap the number of available POGO licenses at 50 until it had time to assess whether newer licensees were cannibalizing older licensees’ revenue.

The latest licensees feature at least one former licensee of the First Cagayan Leisure and Resort Corp, which had been the Philippines’ primary online licensing body until the POGO program arrived. In August, First Cagayan revealed that nearly half of its licensees had defected to the POGO camp.