PAGCOR of Philippine gaming regulator said recently that it has detected a total of 7,747 illegal online gaming sites. 5,793 or almost 75% of these have already been blocked.
Inquirer reported that the update was provided by Senior Vice President of Security Monitoring Cluster of PAGCOR, Ret. Gen. Raul Villanueva. It was during an appearance at the Senate committee on ways and means’ public hearing on the Anti-Online Gambling Act.
Villanueva explained that the regulator has been monitoring illegal gambling sites. This includes e-sabong, Facebook ads, mobile applications, offshore sites, and spam messages. Around 1,954 of the 7,747 sites detected are still active.
He also noted that blocking all sites remained challenging, specifically in regards to interrupting payment processing.
He said that there are no studies yet on payment blocking based on his research. Some of these criminals use cryptocurrency as a mode of payment. And the banking system is very complex, offshore banking is very complex. They have reached out to payment portals like GCash and Maya. Two weeks ago, they had a meeting with a representative of GCash. During the meeting, GCash promised to purge these illegal sites. They have submitted or published only the illegal sites on their websites.
Villanueva also stated it has also reached out Google Play and Apple Play Store to request they help shut down illegal sites.
He commented that there has been a reduction in Facebook ads, especially illegal sabong, due to their ongoing efforts. But they shifted to chat rooms like Telegram chatgroups and they’ve been advertising and posting links on illegal sites.
In the middle of a series of recent raids on illegal Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators or POGO hubs found to have been engaging in serious illegal activities, online gaming, particularly the offshore gaming industry in the Philippines has been in the crosshairs.
