BSP orders e-wallets to block online gambling links within 48 hours

August 15 ------ SEN. Juan Miguel Zubiri said Thursday online gambling has expanded at a speed government regulators “failed to match,” with revenues jumping over 5,500 percent in the past four years. “From 2020 to 2024, the industry grew by 5,564 percent. Unbelievable. And yet it is real,” Zubiri said during a Senate hearing on measures to deal with online gambling.

He linked the surge on online betting to “easy access” through e-wallets or mobile apps. The senator said online gambling proliferated while losses piled up for wage earners, students and low-income families “whose lives have been lost or destroyed by betting online.”

Zubiri deplored the “shameful status” that the Philippines earned after being listed as the gambling capital of Asia, with 79 casinos surpassing Cambodia with 48, Macao with 47, Vietnam with 40 and South Korea with 32. He noted that according to the World Health Organization, every high-risk gambler affects an average of six other people, “a chain effect of lives destroyed by online gambling.”

Zubiri, chairman of the Senate Committee on Economic Affairs, said the presence of agencies, experts and victims in the hearing would help shed light on both the value and dangers of the industry, expressing hope that the discussions would reveal the depth of the problem and point the way toward possible solutions. He said the gross gaming revenues that rose from P8 billion in 2022 to P33.16 billion in 2023 and P135.71 billion in 2024, with P106.53 billion already logged in the first half of 2025, “translate to money lost at home of many Filipino families.”

Source: manilatimes.net