The long-awaited sale of PAGCOR-operated casinos has been put on hold, according to the head of the Philippines gaming regulator.
In an exclusive interview with Inside Asian Gaming, PAGCOR chairman and CEO Andrea Domingo revealed that the government was no longer focused on selling its casino licenses anytime soon, with the solid growth of the local gaming industry proving too lucrative to give up.
“You know, [the PAGCOR casinos] are holding up quite well. Last year they contributed Php22 billion (US$405.5 million) to our Php60 billion earnings and this year we’re looking at about Php26 billion to Php27 billion,” Domingo told IAG.
Asked if that meant PAGCOR would instead continue as both an operator and a regulator, Domingo said, “I think for the next few years, because they’re still profitable – because the PAGCOR owned and operated casinos, the GGR they yield goes directly to the government, 100%.
“With the IRs, our share of the GGR is about 19.5% so if you look into that and the contribution to the national government every year, if you take this out it will take five years for a new IR to contribute that amount which automatically lessens our net contribution to the national government by Php22 billion for at least for the next 10 years.”
PAGCOR first announced in August 2016 its intention to sell its 47 casinos under order of President Rodrigo Duterte, with the goal of raising funds towards the national budget.
It later stated that the sale of its licenses would begin in 2018 and in January this year revealed it had singled out 17 individual casinos under its operation to be offered to interested parties under phase one of the sell-off.
However, Domingo told IAG that no discussions with prospective buyers have taken place.
“Actually it is prohibited for us to talk to anybody who wants to buy because of the procurement law,” she said. “The issues that are being raised about PAGCOR owning casinos as well as regulating privately owned casinos, that it’s a conflict of interest, this doesn’t actually happen because being a government office, I have to go through procurement law – which is a nightmare.
“So I think the privatization thing, there’s really nothing to sell because all of the casinos that we own and operate are in venues that are not owned by us but only leased by us.”
Domingo added that although PAGCOR-operated casinos could not compete with the scale of or revenue generated by Manila’s Entertainment City IRs, “We’re keeping our market because we have a niche in the gaming industry.
“There’s a certain cultural characteristic of the Filipinos, the ‘Suki’ mentality,” she said. “They’re so used to dealing with these people, the personalized service, the ‘hi, hello’, they know each other’s first names – those are what the IRs will never be able to take from PAGCOR.”
The full interview with Domingo will feature in the upcoming October edition of Inside Asian Gaming, available from next week.
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