Gambling in the Philippines

The gambling scene

Gambling in the Philippines is unusually broad for Asia. Almost every form exists somewhere legally: full-scale casino resorts, a national lottery run by the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, horse racing with totalizator betting, cockfighting arenas, bingo halls and e-bingo parlors, poker clubs, and a licensed online sector serving local players. The state regulator, PAGCOR, both licenses private operators and runs its own Casino Filipino chain, and its gaming revenues feed public services¹.

The scene has deep local roots. Cockfighting, card games like Tongits and Pusoy, and carnival-style perya games such as Color Game long predate the casinos, and they still shape what Filipinos play, in person and online. On top of that sits a modern resort industry built largely for visitors: foreign passport holders have been welcome in Philippine casinos since the earliest gaming decrees, and one Korean court decision even took note of the fact that foreigner entry to Philippine casinos is allowed⁹. For the full story, see history of gambling in the Philippines.

The rest of this page walks through what there is, where, and what it costs.

Casinos and resorts

The flagship destination is Entertainment City Manila, a purpose-built resort district in Parañaque. City of Dreams Manila sits at Aseana Avenue corner Roxas Boulevard, with hotels, dining and a large casino floor alongside². The district also holds Solaire, Okada Manila and Newport World Resorts, each with its own gaming floors, table games and slot halls. Okada Manila's baccarat offering shows the style of the market: Tiger Baccarat, a non-commission variant with six side bets and payouts up to x100, is billed as its most popular baccarat game¹¹.

Beyond Manila, casinos in Clark and Angeles serve the former US air base area, and casinos in Cebu anchor the Visayas. PAGCOR's own Casino Filipino chain spreads much further: sixteen of its sites, from Mactan and Cebu's Fuente to Subic Bay Yacht Club and Cagayan Valley, have earned ISO 9001:2015 certification, a sign of how mainstream these venues are¹². For the full picture, see casinos in the Philippines.

Inside the resorts you'll find the full range of casino table games in the Philippines, with baccarat dominating, plus slot machines in the Philippines from studios such as JILI, PG Soft, Pragmatic Play and FC Fa Chai, in formats from classic reels to jackpot and arcade-style games¹³. The jackpots can be serious money: at City of Dreams Manila, linked slot jackpots in late September 2026 ranged from about P10.8 million on Dragon Trio to P42.7 million on Duo Fu Duo Cai Grand¹⁴. If baccarat is your game, the dedicated baccarat in the Philippines page covers variants, side bets and payouts.

Resorts also run casino loyalty programs in the Philippines. Okada Manila's Reward Circle is one example; note that holders of a PAGCOR Gaming Employment License are excluded from joining, so casino staff themselves cannot earn points¹⁵.

The lottery

The Philippines lottery is run by the PCSO and sold at outlets nationwide. Tickets for the main lotto draws cost P25 each, raised from P20 in February 2025³.

The headline games are the PCSO jackpot games:

System Play lets you cover multiple combinations in one ticket³. For quicker, cheaper games, the PCSO digit games such as Swertres and EZ2 offer fixed-prize draws several times a day.

Alongside the official lottery sits the informal numbers game jueteng. A 2013 Philippine Star column described the situation bluntly:

It remains part of the landscape despite being outside the licensed system; the jueteng and Small Town Lottery page explains how the government's licensed STL was designed to compete with it¹⁶.

Sports betting and racing

Sports betting in the Philippines is available through PAGCOR-licensed operators, both in casino sportsbooks and online. BingoPlus, for example, runs a licensed sportsbook for eligible users in the Philippines, with an app for iOS and Android¹⁷. Esports betting in the Philippines is offered by several licensed platforms as part of the same sportsbook products.

Horse racing in the Philippines has a long pedigree: the Philippine Racing Club was granted its track authority back in 1972, with racing days on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays¹⁸. Today betting is totalizator-based, on course and off course through betting stations; there are no proper bookmakers. Admission to a racetrack is often free, making it one of the cheapest gambling days out in the country⁵. The bet types on offer are extensive⁶:

• Win and Place
• Daily Double, Forecast and Triple-Trifecta
• Trifecta, Superfecta, Quartet and Pentafecta
• Pick-6 and Winner-Take-All

Poker

Live poker thrives here. PAGCOR's license register lists dedicated poker rooms across the country⁴:

• Prime Poker Club and Masters Poker Club in Manila
• Red Dragon Poker Room in Ermita
• Century Poker Sports Club and Wild Aces in Angeles City
• Blue Sapphire at the Waterfront in Cebu, and Voyager in Mandaue
• Kings Card Club and Gensan Poker Club in General Santos
• A room in Puerto Galera's Sabang Beach

The poker in the Philippines page covers stakes, games and what each room is like.

Tournaments are a growing draw. The poker tournaments scene centers on events like the Philippine Poker Tournament at the Metro Card Club: its fifth edition ran January 29 to February 5, 2024, with a P4,500 buy-in, a 25,000 starting stack and a P4 million guarantee, drawing a record 686 entries the year before¹⁹.

Online poker is licensed too, with operators like GGPoker holding PAGCOR online poker licenses for the local market²⁰. One quirk: PAGCOR's Remote Play Poker framework, aimed at offshore players, is open only to foreign nationals physically outside the Philippines; Filipino citizens are excluded wherever they are²¹.

Local and traditional games

The games Filipinos actually grow up with fill this section. Bingo in the Philippines is everywhere: Casino Filipino branches hold regular bingo sessions daily, bi-weekly or monthly, plus charity bingo quarterly or semi-annually, and events like the Shower of Millions offered a P150,000 guaranteed prize per provincial branch²². Bingo is legal when licensed, and even barangays may run fundraising bingo without national permits, as the Supreme Court confirmed in 2025; it is also fine as a parlor or home game²³.

Sabong, cockfighting, is the country's oldest betting sport. Traditional in-person sabong continues under local government supervision, but online cockfighting, e-sabong, was suspended nationwide by presidential directive in 2022, and licensed e-sabong operator lists are now historical rather than active²⁵.

Card games are the domestic favorite: the Filipino card games page covers Tongits and Pusoy, which have also moved online through licensed platforms like Tongitstok²⁶. The perya games, Color Game, Pula Puti and Drop Ball, inspired by carnival fairground stalls, are now licensed as electronic table games; PAGCOR's game register lists Color Game, Color Game Extreme and Color Prediction as approved eCasino table products²⁷.

Online

Online gambling in the Philippines splits into two worlds. The local market is served by PAGCOR-licensed online casinos: platforms such as BingoPlus, GameZone, Winzir and others, offering eCasino games, eBingo, sports betting and online poker, each with registered domains you can check against PAGCOR's published lists²⁰. Licensed platforms must follow PAGCOR rules on operational standards, player protection, anti-money laundering and responsible gambling²⁹.

The other world was the offshore sector, the POGOs, which served players abroad and was banned outright effective December 31, 2024; the POGOs and the 2024 ban page explains what happened and what replaced it³⁰. Offshore-licensed sites were always barred from taking bets from Filipinos or anyone inside the country, and PAGCOR urges the public to check its list of licensees before playing on any offshore-facing site³¹.

The practical takeaway for a local player: stick to sites on PAGCOR's published lists. Betting on unlicensed sites is a criminal act for the bettor, and PAGCOR regularly warns about fake sites mimicking licensed brands¹⁰.

Money and payments

Winnings are taxed. A 20 percent final tax applies to prizes and winnings from Philippine sources, with two exemptions worth knowing³³:

• Prizes of P10,000 or less
• PCSO lotto winnings

Separately, PAGCOR pays 5 percent of winnings to the Bureau of Internal Revenue as franchise tax¹. The tax on gambling winnings page has the details.

For moving money, the gambling payments page covers the local options: GCash and Maya mobile wallets, cards, and crypto on some licensed platforms. Licensed online operators in the Philippines typically support local e-wallets for deposits and withdrawals, which is what most Filipino players use day to day.

Who can play

The rules differ by who you are, and the grid below sums it up. The short version: casinos are open to tourists and nonresident foreigners who are 21 or older, while Filipino residents must additionally show at least P50,000 of income in the previous year, certified by the Bureau of Internal Revenue⁷. Members of the police and armed forces, government officials and students are barred from gaming venues regardless of income, and banning orders, whether self-exclusion, family exclusion or licensee-issued, apply nationwide³⁴. Online, locals may only use PAGCOR-licensed local sites; offshore-licensed sites exclude anyone located in the Philippines³⁵.

Visiting and living there

If you are visiting, the resorts are built with you in mind. Bring your passport: foreign passports are what qualify you for the foreign-currency gaming pits, which are open only to foreign passport holders or Hong Kong patrons with certificates of identity³⁶. The gambling in the Philippines as a visitor page covers entry rules, dress codes and what to expect at the door.

If you are living here, the income requirement is the main hurdle for casinos, but the lottery, horse racing, bingo and licensed online sites are open to any adult resident. PAGCOR's responsible gaming program also lets players request self-exclusion, and family members can seek exclusion on a relative's behalf¹⁵.

Getting help

If gambling stops being fun, help exists. PAGCOR runs a responsible gaming program with a helpline at (02) 8538-9090, and Gamblers Anonymous Philippines can be reached at 0915 938 2808¹⁵. The gambling help in the Philippines page lists all the options, including how self-exclusion and family exclusion orders work at licensed venues.