Fresh off its historic victory over the now finally imprisoned former Speaker Martin Romualdez, PGMN now has its sights set on a new target—the hottest issue in the Philippines before the flood control scandal blew up last year: THE ILLEGAL ONLINE CASINO INDUSTRY.
Leading the campaign is PGMN Anchor Mervin Kei Chua Oliveros, an online player-safety specialist with 13 years of firsthand experience inside one of the world’s best-known betting companies.
Watch the full episode here: https://www.facebook.com/reel/2517828515355880
Oliveros spent those 13 years at William Hill, a British betting institution founded in 1934 that today operates more than 1,000 high-street betting shops in the United Kingdom and has an international presence with core markets in the UK, Spain and Italy. William Hill’s international business was acquired in 2022 as part of a transaction valued at roughly £1.95 billion to £2.05 billion in enterprise value, underscoring the scale of the operation where Oliveros built his career.
His experience was not limited to customer service. Oliveros worked across player care, high-value VIP support, compliance, identity verification, duplicate-account enforcement and self-exclusion, and says he handled some of William Hill’s wealthiest European VIP clients. He later worked directly with safeguards designed to keep minors and fake accounts out, close duplicate accounts and enforce exclusions for players who had chosen to stop gambling.
That gives Oliveros more than a decade of operational experience across both the commercial and player-safety sides of international online gambling, including the systems legitimate operators use to verify players, manage risky behavior, investigate accounts and protect vulnerable users.
The campaign comes as PAGCOR Chairman Alejandro Tengco said in August 2026 that around 50% of online gaming sites accessed in the Philippines are illegal, highlighting the scale of an underground market capable of changing domains, resurfacing under new addresses and continuing to reach Filipino players.
PGMN’s position is simple. Adults who choose to gamble legally can make that decision for themselves, provided they understand the risks and know when to stop. The network is going after the illegal operators taking Filipino money while avoiding the obligations imposed on legitimate gaming companies.
Licensed gaming operates inside a system where operators can be identified, monitored and sanctioned. They pay taxes, license fees and regulatory charges, while revenues collected by PAGCOR help fund government programs. From January to July 2025 alone, licensed online gaming generated ₱69 billion in license fees, with ₱27.47 billion contributed to nation-building programs, including ₱14.72 billion for Universal Health Care. PAGCOR said gaming revenues also support school buildings, wellness centers, socio-civic centers and E-Learning hubs.
The regulated casino industry also carries social obligations beyond taxes. PAGCOR requires covered casino licensees to establish foundations funded by 2% of monthly gross gaming revenue from non-junket tables, supporting programs involving education, health and wellness, sports development, cultural heritage and the environment.
Player protection is another major dividing line. Licensed operators must follow responsible-gaming rules aimed at preventing gambling addiction and underage gambling. PAGCOR prohibits people below 21 years old from gambling, while regulated platforms maintain mechanisms for restricted players and people who voluntarily or through their families seek exclusion from gambling.
Licensed online platforms also conduct Know Your Customer or KYC verification, which establishes who is actually behind an account. Identity and age checks make it harder for minors, fake accounts and prohibited users to enter the regulated system.
Illegal platforms provide no assurance that those safeguards are being followed. PAGCOR has warned that illegal operators can attract players of all ages without safeguards, while depriving government of revenues that regulated gaming helps channel into public programs.
The consequences become even more serious when a dispute involves real money. Licensed gaming sites provide mechanisms through which players can raise complaints and grievances against operators. Illegal platforms may leave players dealing only with an online account, customer-service chat or changing web address, with no licensed Philippine operator that regulators can readily compel to respond. PAGCOR has separately warned that illegal gambling exposes users to scams, identity theft and payment fraud.
Complaints involving sites that refuse to pay winnings became serious enough for PAGCOR to launch PAGCOR Guarantee, a public verification service that allows players to check whether an online gaming platform is actually licensed before playing or sending money.
That is also why PGMN does not support a blanket ban on legal online gambling. PAGCOR has warned that outright prohibition could drive players toward illegal operators instead. With roughly half of online gaming sites accessed in the country already estimated to be illegal, eliminating regulated alternatives risks expanding the very market authorities are trying to contain.
Oliveros’ first major report for the campaign focused on JLBOSS, an online casino used by a Filipino player whose displayed balance reached nearly ₱72,000 before repeated withdrawal attempts failed.
JLBOSS later cited alleged “abnormal betting activity” and reduced the displayed balance to ₱199. Oliveros said the records he reviewed did not identify the specific bet, game, transaction, timestamp or rule supposedly violated, despite the player asking for evidence.
Oliveros subsequently checked JLBOSS against the license list referenced in his research and did not find the platform there. His investigation also found that an original domain connected to the operation had been blocked by the NTC before the operation appeared again through another web address.
For PGMN, JLBOSS is only the opening case.
We will go after the illegal online casinos operating outside regulation, expose operators exploiting Filipino players and keep putting these platforms under scrutiny. Adults can decide for themselves whether they want to gamble legally. But illegal sites that avoid taxes, bypass safeguards, fail to protect vulnerable gamblers, make it easier for minors to slip through and leave Filipinos with nowhere clear to turn when their money disappears are the operators PGMN intends to pursue.
