The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor) has dimissed a unfounded memo for native authorities items to straight away end the operations of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO).
Picked up by Pagcor, the unfounded memo states all POGOs will own to be shut down by the first week of August. The memo aspects Pagcor logos and used to be fraudulently signed by Jessa Mariz Fernandez, head of the regulator’s offshore gaming licensing department.
The memo refers to Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos Jr announcing the diagram in which to ban all POGOs during his Enlighten of the Nation address on 22 July. At some stage in the address, he talked about all POGOs will own to nearby the stop of the year.
On Saturday (27 July) Pagcor brushed off the memo in a assertion that talked about it used to be a solid model of an earlier memorandum issued by Pagcor on 23 July.
The staunch memo didn’t give a definitive date for POGO closures. It as an different talked about closures were “pending finalisation of the important aspects and assignment of winding down”, alongside with that operations “might presumably well remain in the place quo” in the meantime.
Pagcor criticises efforts to create “chaos and confusion”
“We now own now not issued a memorandum ordering native authorities items to straight away conclude down POGO operations of their jurisdiction for the reason that president’s present is extremely stride,” Fernandez talked about.
“We now own unless the stop of the year to wind down POGO operations and we are capable of watch that.
“That is a stride disinformation supposed to create chaos and confusion. Whoever is gradual this clearly has ulterior motives. We are going to ask the National Bureau of Investigation to study and unmask them to establish their motives.”
Waste of an period as POGOs prepare to conclude
When announcing the diagram in which to ban POGOs, President Marcos had quite lots of criticism for the sector.
He accused the sector of facilitating illicit activities such as financial scamming, money laundering, prostitution, human trafficking, kidnapping, torture and raze. House Speaker Martin Romualdez promised to steal action as soon as the agenda used to be published.
The confirmed ban follows a 2022 advertising and marketing campaign which called for all POGOs to be outlawed. Senator Joel Villanueva launched Senate Bill 1281 in September 2022 to ban all kinds of on-line gambling, amid claims that notorious public figures were being influenced by the POGO sector.
Offer:iGamingBusiness
