POGOs in the Philippines

What POGOs are

POGO stands for Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator. A POGO was a company licensed by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) to run online gambling from inside the Philippines, with the customers sitting in other countries. The defining feature was in the name: offshore. The servers, offices and staff were in the Philippines, often in large dedicated compounds, but the players were abroad¹.

The industry grew quickly. POGOs offered a variety of online gaming services to customers outside the Philippines, and expanded rapidly by targeting Chinese customers in particular, since gambling is illegal in mainland China¹. At their peak the operations employed large numbers of foreign workers, mostly Chinese nationals, in hubs around Metro Manila and in places as far afield as Cavite⁵.

The model was unusual. A company could not legally offer online gambling to Chinese residents from China, but it could set up in the Philippines under a Philippine license, hire Chinese-speaking staff, take payments in Chinese-friendly ways, and serve players in China over the internet. The Philippines supplied the license and the premises; the customers never set foot in the country¹.

If you were in the Philippines during the POGO years, you would mostly have noticed the industry indirectly: office towers and compounds with foreign workers, and periodic news stories about the sector's size and its troubles. The games themselves were never available to people inside the country, which is the next point.

Who POGOs could accept as players

The rules on who could actually play were strict and, for a gambling product, unusual: the license only covered players outside the Philippines.

An offshore gaming player was defined as someone located outside the Philippines who is not a Filipino citizen, who enters the game remotely through a device connected to the internet, and who pays money or something of value to enter the game⁶. The Supreme Court of the Philippines quoted this definition when the industry's legal basis was challenged, so it is the settled description of who counted as a player⁶.

In practice, the definition breaks down into three conditions, all of which had to be met:

• The player had to be physically in a country other than the Philippines²
• The player had to be a foreigner, not a Filipino citizen²
• The player had to enter the game remotely over the internet and pay to play⁶

Only foreigners based in another country were authorized to play⁵. That is the whole eligible market: a foreigner sitting in, say, Vietnam or South Korea could legally be a POGO customer under Philippine rules, while the same foreigner sitting in Manila could not.

Who was never allowed to play

The flip side of the offshore-only rule is a long list of people who could never play, and it is worth being clear about because it surprises many readers.

First, the POGO-specific exclusions. Licensees were obliged to bar any individual in the Philippines, any Filipino citizen regardless of location, and any patrons in countries and territories where offshore gambling is illegal⁴. So a Filipino working overseas could not play, a foreign tourist in Manila could not play, and a resident of a country that prohibits offshore gambling could not be served either.

Second, the general Philippine gambling exclusions, which apply to land-based venues licensed by PAGCOR, give a sense of who the country bars from gambling generally.

For comparison, the domestic e-sabong (online cockfighting) platform operated on the mirror-image principle: it accepted bets from the Philippines only and was not accessible from outside the country¹¹. POGOs and e-sabong were the two ends of the spectrum, one purely for export, one purely for home.

The ban: every license gone by the end of 2024

The story of how POGOs ended is short and decisive. In July 2024, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. announced a ban on all POGOs in the Philippines, giving operators until December 31 to wind down¹².

The executive order came in November 2024. It required POGOs, IGLs (internet gaming licensees) and other offshore gaming operations, along with their related, auxiliary and ancillary services, to completely cease operations, including the winding up of their affairs, on December 31, 2024 or earlier³.

The wind-down also clarified who the industry had actually been serving. POGOs were set up to provide online gaming services to customers outside the Philippines, and the sector had grown rapidly by targeting Chinese customers¹³. Filipino citizens were never part of the customer base: authorized players were defined as individuals physically located in a country other than the Philippines, which excluded Filipinos¹⁴. As the December 31 deadline approached, officials spoke of ensuring that all POGO-related activities were completely stopped by 2025¹⁵.

The final step came mid-month: the revocation of the licenses of the remaining POGOs took effect on Sunday, December 15, 2024¹⁶. Individual hubs closed ahead of that date, including a large POGO hub at Island Cove in Cavite, which stopped operations before the December 15 deadline¹⁷. PAGCOR later confirmed that effective December 31, 2024, all POGOs in the country were banned¹⁸.

So if you are reading this wondering whether any POGO license is still valid: no. The last licenses were revoked on December 15, 2024, and the legal basis for the whole offshore model ended on December 31, 2024³.

What happens to POGO-related activities after the deadline

The executive order did not just cancel the gambling licenses. It covered the whole ecosystem. Licensed operations and their related, auxiliary and ancillary services had to completely cease operations, including winding up their affairs, by December 31, 2024 or earlier³. That meant the service providers around the industry, not only the gaming operators themselves, had to shut down or move to other business.

The ban also covered the industry's successor label. When POGOs attracted negative attention, some operators rebranded as internet gaming licensees (IGLs), but PAGCOR made clear that the ban covered legal gaming hubs and IGLs too⁴. Renaming did not preserve anything.

After the deadline, anything still presenting itself as a POGO is operating illegally. PAGCOR has warned the public against illegal offshore gaming sites, noting that all POGOs were banned effective December 31, 2024¹⁸. If you encounter a site claiming to be a licensed POGO today, it is not licensed by PAGCOR, whatever it says.

For readers in the Philippines wondering what they can still do, the domestic options were untouched by the POGO ban. Licensed land-based casinos continue to operate, and Philippine residents, while they cannot join local online casino sites, are allowed to use offshore-based casinos¹⁹. You can read more in our pages on casinos in the Philippines, PAGCOR-licensed online casinos and online gambling in the Philippines.

Why POGOs targeted Chinese customers

The commercial logic of POGOs was built on China's gambling prohibition. Operators leveraged the Philippines' liberal gambling licensing to target Chinese customers, in a country where gambling is illegal²⁰. That is why the compounds employed Chinese-speaking staff, ran Chinese-language games and marketing, and processed payments in ways convenient for Chinese players.

The definition of an authorized player, someone physically in a country other than the Philippines, excluding Filipino citizens, was written with exactly this market in mind². The Philippines was the hosting jurisdiction; China was the customer base.

This is also why the industry was politically fragile from the start. Operators leveraged the Philippines' liberal gambling laws to target Chinese customers, in a country where gambling is illegal²¹. Serving a customer base that could not legally gamble at home put the industry in a difficult position with both Beijing and Manila, and made the sector's continued existence dependent on political goodwill rather than settled policy.

POGOs vs licensed casinos in the Philippines

It is worth separating POGOs from the ordinary, licensed gambling industry in the Philippines, because the ban on one did not affect the other.

Licensed casinos in the Philippines serve a completely different market. They are land-based venues, open to visitors and foreign residents who meet the entry rules, and they are a major part of the tourism economy. You can find them at Entertainment City Manila, in Clark and Angeles, in Cebu and at Casino Filipino branches nationwide. Their entry rules are the general ones described above: 21 and over, not a student, not a serving official or member of the armed forces or police⁷.

The player pools never overlapped. A POGO could not serve anyone in the Philippines; a licensed casino in Manila could not serve a player in China. The two industries ran in parallel, one exporting gambling services, one hosting visitors in person, and only the export side was banned³.

For online play, the split continues after the ban. Philippine residents cannot join local online casino sites but are allowed to frequent offshore-based casinos¹⁹, while the domestic PAGCOR-licensed online options are covered on our PAGCOR online casinos page. Visitors planning a trip can also read our guide to gambling in the Philippines as a visitor.

One last practical note: the POGO ban is total and permanent under the current executive order, which states that offshore gaming operations and their service providers had to cease completely by December 31, 2024³. There is no renewal window, no grace period and no category of surviving license. If a future administration were to change course, that would be new law, and as of today nothing of the sort exists.