Gambling regulation
Gambling in the country:
Licensing
Local License:
PAGCOR
Top payment systems
Top Payment Methods (October 2024):
iGaming news in the country
Telegram останется доступным в Филиппинах после переговоров с государственными органами. Однако возможность будущего запрета полностью не исключается.
Affiliates receiving traffic
More about gambling regulation
Gambling in the Philippines has a long history - the island state legalized it back in the 16th century. In 1975, the law No. 1067-a, which is still in force today, was issued to regulate the gambling market in the country. In the same year, PAGCOR - the state body for supervision of the gambling industry and promotion of tourism - was established. Since then, the country's iGaming industry has significantly expanded, and Manila began to strive for the status of the center of gambling in Asia.
Peculiarities of regulation
The Cagayan and Freeport economic zone does not lend itself to the islands' primary legislation. Casinos and online gambling in these regions are only available to tourists. In addition, in the provinces of Cagayan and Freeport, gambling is allowed from the age of 18, when in the rest of the country the age threshold is higher at 21;
All gambling laws in the Philippines are aimed at casino operators, not players. Thus, casinos and BCs registered on the islands cannot offer online services to their compatriots;
In general, online gambling is legal in the country. Filipinos are allowed to play online poker, online casinos, sports betting and horse racing from licensed operators. In addition, locals are allowed to gamble on offshore gambling sites.
Recent trends in legislation
Since 2023, the current president has been actively advocating for a ban on online gambling for all Filipino citizens. However, for the time being, we should not expect the regulation of online gambling in the islands to be tightened;
The Philippines has fairly lenient sports betting laws, making the market particularly attractive for BC operators.
Given the locals' love of gambling, the Philippine GEO can offer operators a large and lucrative customer base.
The President of the Philippines signed an executive order in early November 2024 that completely banned all offshore gambling activities in the country, including POGOs (Philippine offshore gambling operators that operated both domestically and in the foreign gambling market) and iGaming licensees (IGLs).
The ordinance, which takes effect immediately, was initiated in response to growing public concern about the ongoing crime and social problems associated with online gambling.
On this occasion, the Philippine authorities have envisaged the establishment of two special teams:
The first group will focus on supporting laid-off Filipino workers (retraining and upgrading their skills)
The second group will be busy closing down both licensed and illegal gambling operators
In addition, the country's Bureau of Internal Revenue will be responsible for promptly collecting the remaining taxes from offshore iGaming operators.
Radical measures by the Philippine authorities are forcing offshore operators to seek new havens for their activities. For example, neighboring countries to the Philippines, such as East Timor or Cambodia.
About blocking and liability
High
Legislation:
Often severe restrictions/limitations on advertising
The activity of the authorities:
High
Risk of harassment of non-residents:
Medium
The risk in entering the country:
Medium
Risk of extradition to the country:
Medium
Precedents (against non-residents):
None/single
Comment on the level of risk:
Philippines: Markets with high regulatory activity; avoid without local license. Risk of extradition to the country is medium - serious case inquiries from the US and some other partner countries are possible.
Blask.com data - index and top brands
Indicates the aggregate level of engagement and interest in all brands in a country. This indicator serves as a barometer for the iGaming industry and combines various indicators to give an overview of trends and changes in the market.
*BAP (Brand's Accumulated Power) - accumulated brand power, reflects the brand's share of consumer interest in the online gambling market. The relative presence of a brand in a country. The BAP graph is presented below:
Data for the section is provided by the analytical service Blask.com.. At the moment, the service's database contains information on more than 80+ countries and more than 2500 brands.
Gambling in the country
Gambling is widely popular among the Filipino population. According to TGM Research, 58% Filipinos have bet or gambled at least once in 2022.
Average age online casino players:
Among the players interviewed. betting on sports:
Betting is popular among young people: almost half of the bettors are in the age category from 18 to 34 (45%).
There is a large lottery demand (Bingo, Powerball):
Online slots are played by 24% of the population, predominantly an audience of 35 to 44 (32% of all players).
Online card games (blackjack, poker) are played by 22% men and 21% women. The popularity of card games is observed among all age categories (21%-25%), except for gamblers from 55 to 64 (7%).
The iGaming market in the Philippines is growing strongly, thanks to the liberalization of legislation and the country's strategic location. The gambling sector is expected to continue to expand in the coming years.
What's in demand?
The popularity of bingo among women
In the Philippines, bingo is popular among women - 33% of those participating in gambling choose this game. This highlights the need for marketing strategies that specifically target female audiences.
| Lic | AVG | Rank | MS | Brand | Rank/MS | iGaming | Rank/MS | Sportsbook | Brand | iGaming / Sportsbook |
|---|
What information is provided in the table?
Here is the statistics on search queries of the Philippines brand separately by different countries and separately by iGaming and Sportsbook clusters (for convenience the columns are visually highlighted: red - for iGaming information, blue - for Sportsbook information). In case a brand consists of a word or phrase in widespread use - Brand frequency is calculated summarily from the frequencies of queries from iGaming + Sportsbook clusters.
Lic - this column indicates the icon of local licence of the brand in the country. Licence data is updated manually, without automatic aggregation, so there may be discrepancies with reality.
AVG (Average Frequency) - in this table, this is the average frequency of a branded query over the year (yellow graph).
Rank - shows the brand's place (by frequency of brand query or query cluster) in the country compared to other brands found in the country.
MS (Market Share) - market share calculated by brand frequency (or query cluster frequency) compared to other brands across the country.
If a brand frequency is found in a country that was not previously found in that country, this country is marked as "NEW..." (i.e. it is labelled as a recommendation to study the brand+country bundle as a possible new promotion market). (i.e. it is labelled as a recommendation to study the brand+country combination as a possible new promotion market).
Data is updated at least once a month. Collected from Google search engine.
Can this data be trusted?
All frequency data for analysis is collected automatically via API directly from the Google search engine. To form queries, combinations of queries like (brand + word/phrase) are used. It should be taken into account that although the data is taken from the Google search engine, but in some places it may contain contradictory information, both due to anomalies in the analytics on the Google side and human errors in the formation of brand queries. We review the received and generated data on the site and, if anomalies are detected, we make adjustments, which in the subsequent update collects data more accurately.
The data from the website should not be relied upon as an accurate measurement. This data is collected and generated on the platform in order to understand the possible demand for brands in different countries, as well as to understand the gambling market and the distribution of "forces" in it.
How does the data collection process take place?
There are several stages of data collection:
1. brand query. The system takes the name of the brand and collects the frequency of the brand query across the countries of the world available on Google. It is not uncommon for a branded query to be a commonly used word or phrase (e.g. "Raspberry" or "Alpha" or "Las Vegas"), then the frequency of the query will have completely inaccurate data that is not relevant to the company in question. In this case, "brand + casino" or "brand + bet" is added to the branded query, or the sum of frequencies from iGaming + Sportsbook clusters is taken into account instead of the branded frequency. This is done in order to exclude complete zeroing of brand frequency, and to collect instead narrower queries, but allowing to keep the brand statistics in the general picture of brands in the world and in each country separately.
2. iGaming and Sportsbook clusters - are collected from combinations of queries like "brand + casino" (+casino, +cassino, etc.) and "brand + bet" (+betting, +paris sportifs, +apuestas, etc.). That is, for each country the phrase "brand + casino" is formed, as well as phrases with the local use of the word "casino" in the native language. The same for the Sportsbook cluster, queries with "sports betting" are used, both widely used and localised in each country. The overall graph (red and blue) shows the sum of frequencies from all countries for each cluster, as well as their dynamics. The table by country shows local data formed from the sum of frequencies of cluster queries just for the country in question. If a brand already has the words "casino" or "bet" in its name, for example, "Coral casino", "Premier bet" - then when forming phrases for iGaming and Sportsbook clusters the words "casino" and "bet" added through a space are automatically removed and are not used in the formed phrases. This allows to more accurately form the key queries of users used in the search.
3. Clusters Registration, Promocode, Bonus, App - are formed similarly to the previous clusters, from combinations of commonly used queries in each country separately.
What does the "lock" icon mean?
The site provides a large amount of useful information on iGaming - available free of charge for all users. But there are also more complex developments of our team, which we actively use in our work and are not ready to provide full access to them on a free basis. At least the project has monthly expenses (API, refinements, parsing, constant expansion of information, human resources, etc.). Therefore, a decision was made to add paid access to such data. The Brands section is no exception. All basic information for understanding the market and demand for a brand in different countries is provided here for free. But more accurate analytics, as well as the display of "NEW markets" is closed in paid access.
How do I get full access?
To get full access to the closed information of the site - just go to the page "Prices" (top menu "About Us") and select the tariff "Resident". After payment the tariff will be assigned to you and you will get full access to all sections and data marked with the "lock" icon.
Gambling regulation
Gambling in the country:
Licensing
Local License:
PAGCOR
About the population of the country
Official Language:
English, Tagalog
Believers:
86 %
Second Religion:
About the internet in the country
Mobile Internet:
67.4 %
Landline Internet:
31.3 %
Cf. internet speed:
19.5 Mbps
The country's domain zone:
.PH
Population growth:
Internet users:
Urbanization:
Urbanization - 48.3%
Languages in the country:
Filipino and English (official)
Tagalog - 39.9%.
Bisaya/Binisaya - 16%
Hiligaynon/Ilonggo - 7.3%
Age structure:
0-14 - 30.2%
15-64 years old - 64.3%
65+ - 5.6%
Middle age:
Total - 25.7
Men - 25.1
Women - 26.3
Literacy:
Total - 96.3%
Men - 95.7%
Women - 96.9%
Real GDP:
2021 - $1.002 trillion.
2022 - $1.078 trillion.
2023 - $1.138 trillion.
Real GDP growth:
2021 - 5.71%.
2022 - 7.58%.
2023 - 5.55%.
GDP per capita:
2021 - $8,800
2022 - $9,300
2023 - $9,700
Basic information about the country
Name of country:
Philippines
Code (2-digit):
PH
Continent:
Asia
Capital:
Manila
Area of the country:
300,000 square kilometers.
Phone Code:
63
Currency (currency code):
Philippine Peso (PHP)
Geographical features of the country
Autonomous Region: Bangsamoro in Muslim Mindanao.
Administrative Region: Cordillera.
Region (16): Bicol, Eastern Visayas, Davao, Cagayan Valley, Western Visayas, Ilocos, Calabarson, Caraga, Mimaropa, Negros, Zamboanga Peninsula, Northern Mindanao, Soccxsarhen, Capital City, Central Visayas, Central Luzon.
The modern territory of the country was partially or fully occupied by the following states: Spanish Empire, Japanese Empire.
The Philippines is washed by seas: Philippine Sea, South China Sea, Sulawesi Sea, Sulu Sea, Molucca Sea, Mindanao Sea, Sibuyan Sea, Visayan Sea, Camotes Sea, Samar Sea.
The Philippines has access to lakes: Laguna de Bai, Lanao, Taal, Mainit.
The Philippines owns the islands: Luzon, Mindanao, Samar, Negros, Palawan, Panay, Mindoro, Leyte, Cebu, Bohol, Masbate, Catanduanes, Basilan, Marinduque, Busuanga, Jolo, Dinagat, Tablas, Polillo, Tawi-Tawi and others.
Mountains within the country: Apo, Dulang-Dulang, Pulag, Kitanglad, Kalatungan, Mayon, Bulusan, Pinatubo.
Volcanoes are present in the area: Apo, Mayon, Bulusan, Pinatubo, Taal.
Famous caves in the country: St. Paul's, Odloman.
Discussions on country characteristics
Any registered user can share his/her experience of working on this country, tell about his/her «bumps in the road», problems, ideas, ask a question.
AffGate.com is an independent analytical platform for iGaming, SEO, and digital marketing.
We collect data from official sources, structure information about markets, companies and technologies, and make the industry more transparent and understandable for professionals.
AffGate.com is not an online casino and does not provide access to gambling. All information is provided for educational and analytical purposes only.
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