New Philippines president says he’ll ask PAGCOR to revoke online gambling licenses

The Philippines-based online gaming industry held its breath on Thursday after the country’s new president said “online gambling must stop.”

Newly elected President Rodrigo Duterte (pictured) made the surprise announcement at his first cabinet meeting following the official swearing-in ceremony earlier on Thursday. The meeting was televised and is viewable here (the gambling talk begins around 14:20).

Duterte said that he didn’t want “a proliferation of gambling activities all over the country” and complained that too many Filipinos were choosing to gamble instead of working for a living. He went on to say something about the difficulty of collecting taxes from online gambling operators, despite vast evidence to the contrary.

Duterte then dropped his real bombshell, saying that he would ask the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) to rescind the online gambling licenses it has issued “sometime soon.”