Duterte to gambling sites: get POGO license or get out

More details have emerged on Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s latest vow to target the local online gambling industry.

Following Duterte’s public pronouncement on Thursday that he’d ordered the “closure of all online gaming,” Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II told reporters that he’d been given “a marching order to investigate the PEZA (Philippine Economic Zone Authority) and online gambling.”

While Aguirre added that the scope of his authority was still being drafted by Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea and Special Assistant to the President Bong Go, Aguirre’s reference to PEZA suggests Duterte doesn’t intend to scrap the new Philippine Offshore Gambling Operator (POGO) regime.

Until recently, most Asian-facing online gambling sites based in the Philippines held licenses issued by the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA). But this year saw the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) launch the POGO program, which handed out its first licenses this month.