At least 74.78%, or 5,793, of the 7,747 illegal online gaming sites in the Philippines have been detected and blocked, according to the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR).
The regulator's SVP Security Monitoring Cluster Ret. Gen. Raul Villanueva made this claim to the Senate Committee during a public hearing on the Anti-Online Gambling Act.
Villanueva also added that the regulator is not only monitoring illegal online games but also other classifications such as e-sabong, Facebook ads, mobile applications, offshore sites and spam messages. Steps taken include blocking the website or URLs and payment blocking.
“The payment blocking as of now based on my research, there are no studies yet on payment blocking because some of these criminals use cryptocurrency as a mode of payment. And the banking system is very complex, offshore banking is very complex. But we [have reached] out to payment portals like GCash and Maya, and we had a meeting two weeks ago with a representative of Gcash; they promised us to purge these illegal sites,” he explained.
Villanueva added that the regulator has also reached out to Google Play and Apple Play Store to shut down illegal sites.
Recently, PAGCOR prohibited the operation of Philippines Offshore Gaming Operator (POGOs) hubs, along with creating new guidelines to monitor the remaining licensed gaming operators.
