EVERYONE has at least taken a chance on something. Some take a chance on love and relationships, starting a business, pursuing further studies, moving to a new city, or investing in the stock market.
In the Philippines, where people cling to hope dearly, Filipinos take chances to temporarily let go of all uncertainties clouding them.
For others, it comes in the form of playing games of chance for money, or simply put, gambling-a social activity that has been around the country since at least the 16th century.
From cockfighting to bingo, gambling has turned into a new structure-one that seems impossible to pause and even put a stop to.
FOR EA Quijano, a 44-year-old businessman, it all began when he lent some cash to a friend with money troubles.
When he eventually found out that his friend had become addicted to gambling, Quijano wondered why people were becoming drawn to these games of chance.
What was supposed to be just a look-simple ‘try lang’-turned into something hard to resist.
‘This is ironic because I really don’t like gambling,’ Quijano told BusinessMirror.
However, what started with just a few clicks to bet P1 became P5, P100, P1,000, and P5,000 until he ended up usually gambling P10,000 for just one bet.
According to a study conducted by Filipino-focused sociocultural research firm The Fourth Wall, curiosity, boredom, and peer influence are the top reasons for trying online gambling.
‘Imagine, saan ka makakakita ng pumindot ng P50,000? Hindi na kasi namin nakikita ‘yung value ng pera especially pag online siya. Tingin mo coins lang siya na pwedeng ipangtaya [Where else can you just click away P50,000? We don’t really see the value of money anymore, especially when it’s online. You just think of it as coins you can bet with,’ Quijano said.
Since his money is stored in his e-wallet and online bank account, it makes it so much more disposable. Quijano said that if only he could grasp his physical money, he would realize its value and see how much it could buy.
But because gambling with a click is so much easier than physically taking out money from one’s pocket, he ended up losing more than P1.2 million by just playing slot machines through an online casino platform.
‘I don’t feel like P1 million is a lot of money because I’m already hooked on gambling,’ Quijano said.
While there was a point where he won more than P300,000, the losses still outweigh the gains.
‘Since it’s an addiction, you lose control. Once you are there, as long as you have money, you will continue to gamble,’ Quijano said.
For some people, it’s the promise of winning the jackpot that keeps them hooked. But for Quijano, the flashing and vibrant colors and hypnotic sounds keep him glued to the screen from night until morning.
He admitted that although he knows his triggers, there are still some days when he would give in and gamble a little.
Gambling addiction: A brain disease
According to addiction psychiatrist Dr. Reneé Celeste Obra-Puno, online gambling or addiction, in general, is a brain disease.
Obra-Puno explained to BusinessMirror that addiction is a chronic, lifelong, long-term disease.
‘It’s a cycle of getting better, then relapsing, getting better, then relapsing,’ she said, noting that there is a rewiring in the brain and a surge of dopamine.
Dopamine, a powerful chemical, is the pleasure neurotransmitter in the brain that makes people happy.
However, Obra-Puno said that people are not meant to have abnormally high levels of dopamine in the brain’s reward center.
‘Even if you want to stop, your brain has already changed, making it difficult to control that impulse. Sometimes, it becomes compulsive,’ Obra-Puno said.
‘It’s not because you don’t have will power, it’s not because you don’t have morality, it doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person. It just means that you have a brain disease like any other medical disease. It’s hard to control it on your own,’ she stressed.
This kind of addiction not only destroys the life of the person who gambles but also their loved ones and the whole family.
‘There definitely is a rise in patients coming asking for help with online gambling. Sometimes, it’s not just them but also their families because they are desperate,’ Obra-Puno said, adding that their workplace or schools also step in.
‘Exponential growth’
ACCORDING to the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor), nearly a million Filipinos, or approximately 900,000, play daily on online gambling platforms.
This figure forms part of the 32.117 million registered electronic gaming accounts as of June 15, 2025, including multiple registrations by the same individual across different platforms. This increased by 291.3 percent from 8.208 million registered in 2024.
Back in 2018, there were only 469,000 registrations, but this continued to grow to 767,000 in 2021; 1.447 million in 2022; and 2.445 million in 2023.
‘Online gaming has grown exponentially in the past two to three years, and I attribute that to technology,’ Pagcor Chairman Alejandro H. Tengco said in a previous hearing at the House of Representatives.
During the pandemic and even right after, Tengco said people used the advancements in technology to play and gamble online, noting that this is not only happening in the Philippines but all over the world.
Based on The Fourth Wall’s study, 2022 to 2024 are the peak onboarding years in online gambling, and such was traced to the strong influence of lockdowns, digital migration, and possibly increased advertising and social influence during that period.
Most players shifted from informal or unregulated street gambling environments, such as cockfights, perya, or social media betting, with a small fraction coming from land-based casinos, according to the study.
The sheer convenience in playing games of chance through phones, turning them into casinos instead of going to one, has made gambling addiction harder to treat.
‘It’s so easy. You just turn on your phone and as long as you have a Wi-Fi connection, you can use it 24/7,’ Obra-Puno said.
Lawmakers roll the dice
WITH online gambling becoming more accessible to everyone, particularly to those below the legal gambling age of 21 years old, lawmakers in both houses of Congress are at a crossroads.
Some lawmakers are backing the calls for an outright ban on online gambling, while others want stricter regulation.
But ultimately, their shared goal is to safeguard Filipinos, especially those most vulnerable, from the devastating fallout of online gambling, from financial ruin and mental health problems to broken families, crime, and fraud.
What complicates this decision is the fact that online gaming has undeniably been generating far more revenue for the government than traditional land-based casinos and integrated resorts.
According to Pagcor data, gross gaming revenue (GGR) from electronic games increased by 82 percent, rising from merely P16.545 billion in 2021 to P30.242 billion in 2022.
This further surged by 165 percent to P154.517 billion in 2024 from P58.162 billion in 2023.
During the first quarter of 2025, electronic games became the Philippine gaming industry’s top revenue driver for the first time, contributing P51.38 billion or almost half of the P104.12-billion total GGR for the period.
In the first semester of this year, Pagcor’s revenues went up by 14 percent to P59 billion from P51.8 billion year-on-year, propelled by the e-games sector, which contributed P35 billion and surpassed the contribution of land-based operations for the first time as well.
This strong revenue stream enabled Pagcor to increase its contributions to nation-building to P38.1 billion, with P23.61 billion coming from online gaming, benefiting various sectors, such as universal healthcare and sports.
It is important to note that Pagcor’s role goes beyond regulating the country’s gaming industry-it is also tasked with generating sources of additional revenue to fund government programs and contribute to nation-building.
Pagcor estimates that online gaming will contribute P102.66 billion to nation-building in 2025, broken down into P60 billion in license fees, P28.44 billion as the government’s share, and P14.22 billion for universal healthcare.
Tengco said that 62 percent of Pagcor’s current revenue mix comes from online gaming.
Pagcor’s bet: stricter regulation
WHILE online gaming offers significant economic benefits, Tengco said that Pagcor must never lose sight of its foremost obligation, which is protecting people.
‘We at Pagcor are the first to recognize that revenues can never outweigh the risks of problem gambling and its social costs,’ Tengco added.
Amid the legislators’ call for stricter regulation and even an outright ban on online gambling, Tengco said, ‘Pagcor is for stricter regulation and not for a total ban.’
‘A ban would cost the government billions in revenue, eliminate thousands of jobs, and leave consumers defenseless against illegal operations,’ he added.
Technology and internet access, Tengco said, can never be rolled back, and the best safeguard is to provide regulated, legal alternatives for those who want to play online.
‘Together with our industry partners, we aim to assure policymakers that online gaming can be responsibly managed, and can contribute to growth while ensuring an important facet, that is, ensuring public welfare,’ Tengco said.
Licensed online gaming operators also backed Pagcor and called for stronger regulation rather than a total prohibition on online gaming to protect players while ensuring that the economy will continue to thrive.
They said that a complete ban will drive players into the black market, where unlicensed and unregulated operators flourish unchecked, and will not stop Filipinos from playing.
According to Pagcor, only 40 percent are legal in the local online gaming industry. The remaining 60 percent are illegal and operate outside the Philippines, including Russia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Cambodia, Singapore, among others, targeting Filipinos.
‘They give them so much room for Filipino players to become more addicted,’ Tengco said, adding that these illegal operators provide bonuses to players by multiplying their deposit.
Revenues down
WHILE debates in both houses of Congress are ongoing to find a way to curb online gambling, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has ordered e-wallets to sever links to online gambling platforms to reduce the risks of addiction, fraud, and financial harm.
E-wallets, such as GCash and Maya, fully complied with the BSP’s directives to unlink from online gambling platforms.
The delinking resulted in a 50-percent decline in online gaming transactions within three days of the Central Bank’s order.
‘The BSP’s directive is fully aligned with Pagcor’s mandate as well as calls for a more responsible and tighter-regulated online gaming industry. We do, however, recognize that such measures may result in a decline in revenues,’ Pagcor told BusinessMirror.
As a result, Pagcor’s net income and contributions to nation building are also expected to experience some ‘adjustments’ as a result of stricter regulations by the BSP, it said.
‘We saw this when the BSP directed all e-wallets and banks under its jurisdiction to remove links to online gaming platforms. This negatively affected the income generated from online gaming,’ Pagcor added.
Tax online gambling?
IN July, the Department of Finance (DOF), mandated to generate and manage the financial resources of the government, proposed an online gambling tax by increasing the rate at which the government collects from licensed operators’ GGR to keep operators in check while collecting more revenues.
Finance Secretary Ralph G. Recto said that raising the rate by an additional 10 percent, to a total of 48 percent, could result in an extra P20 billion in revenues for the government each year.
Licensed operators remit about 30 percent of their GGR to Pagcor as license fees, plus a 10-percent audit fee on Pagcor’s share, or around 3 percent of GGR. They also pay a 5-percent franchise tax to the Bureau of Internal Revenue, in addition to corporate taxes, business taxes, and employee withholding and social contributions.’
Banning online gambling would not only result in losing much-needed revenues, but would also encourage operators to engage in illegal activities, Recto said.
The BIR holds a similar view: a total ban on online gambling will result in billions of foregone revenues, which will be a challenge for the agency tasked with generating the majority of tax revenues.
‘We believe that the DOF’s proposal needs to be studied further,’ Pagcor told BusinessMirror, stressing that lowering the license fees of legal online gaming operators has significantly increased the revenue collected by the government.
‘Increasing tax rates now could potentially undo the results of our previous efforts,’ it added.
Pagcor said it lowered license fees primarily to draw grey market operators under its regulatory framework and thus ensure compliance, accountability, consumer protection, and higher revenue for the government.
Before 2023, Pagcor said license fees exceeded 50 percent of GGR, fueling the underground market, which even outperformed legal operators.
It reduced the fees to make licensed operators more competitive and attract grey market players into compliance by lowering the rates to 35 percent by the end of 2024, then to 30 percent for e-games and 25 percent for integrated resorts this year.
Maybe not
NOW, the DOF is reconsidering its proposal to tax online gambling.
‘We’re not there right now,’ Recto told BusinessMirror recently.
The Finance chief said that the first move to take e-wallets out of online gambling platforms to tighten controls on the sector caused a drop in Pagcor’s revenues. ‘That’s why we’re not talking about taxes at this point.’
Recto said Pagcor can do taxation itself since it does not require new legislation.
For its part, Pagcor said that stronger regulations, coupled with reasonable and well-calibrated tax policies, ultimately create a safer, more transparent, and more sustainable industry.
‘This benefits not only compliant operators and investors, but also protects the Filipino
people,’ it said.
What’s next
WITH the government scrambling to address the worsening flood control crisis in the country, the clamor over online gambling has gone quiet.
However, for Quijano, who still has access to online gambling platforms despite trying his best to stay away from them, a total ban is the solution.
”Yung mga ordinaryong Pilipino na lulong na, wala pang suporta, tapos ilulubog pa ng gobyerno mo, kawawa sila,’ he said. ‘Iniisip kasi ng gobyerno na sayang ‘yung revenues, pero incompetent kasi sila.’
If a total ban is not possible, then all advertisements should be taken down, including telemarketing and celebrities promoting gambling.
From a psychiatric standpoint, Obra-Puno said that before people become addicted to gambling, exposure must be prevented, especially for those who are vulnerable.
Those below 21 years old who are at risk must also be educated about the harmful effects of online gambling, as well as gambling and addiction as a whole.
Since the prefrontal cortex of the brain is not yet developed until the mid-twenties, they cannot make sound judgments, and the chances of developing a ‘very bad’ addiction are ‘very high,’ Obra-Puno explained.
To also curb actual and potentially problematic online gambling behavior, she said, having a policy to limit daily or weekly cash-ins will help.
For now, Pagcor is reinforcing player protection through enhancing identity checks by having two layers of electronic Know-Your-Customer, strengthening the National Database of Restricted Persons, and having stricter advertising standards.
Tengco said a 24/7 helpline will be launched soon for problem gamblers to have someone to talk to, as well as a portal powered by artificial intelligence identifying all illegal online gaming websites, with an average of one illegal online website being identified every second.
‘We are continuously exploring AI tools for behavioral monitoring, fraud prevention, and self-exclusion,’ he said.
Online gambling can be either a shot at luck or a slide into ruin for players. For policymakers, it’s a lifeline and a looming social threat.
How the country gambles to strike a balance will shape not just the industry, but the lives of millions of Filipinos caught in the game.