Topic: Have you played with the POGO? (Read 433 times)

Cryptocurrency and the pretence of operating casinos have aided a lot of illegalities but I must still confess that this is more serious. I've not played with the casino but I know it's very popular in the Philippines, but the government should have looked beyond personal benefits, their carelessness is irresponsible. What I read online after reading your post is so pathetic and I wonder what the government of the Philippines was watching to the extent that it got to this level of unspeakable atrocities on their soil without taking decisive actions.

Well, all these countries' officials can't be trusted, and corruption is everywhere, so if they wanted to take action, giving them millions of pesos would have solved the issues. This is shameful because no foreign establishments should have been allowed to operate so badly to tarnish the image of the Philippines.

The problem is corruption there are some politicians has been tied up with POGO's. If they are proven that they are helping those POGO's to do their illegal activities on area of their concerns then a proper punishment needed to serve.

I guess they try to regulate it but they didn't made proper monitoring on those POGO's that's why those involve crimes has been rampantly happening in that place. So maybe its time for Philippines to create a law enforcement team that handle online gambling activities and terminate those people who allow or give permits of those POGO's which have questionable businesses in their country. if they didn't ban those POGO's (which I think it already happen) for sure there's more bigger problem it could bring on the country which they currently operates.

Most times, when the government sees that they are really in need of funds and do not know what to do or how to further generate revenue in the situation of a country without any major source of revenue. They will start putting pressure on the existing company in their country and that alone would make them want to settle a new scores with them.
This is exactly what I think is the reason for the threat on the pogo. The Philippines government just want an increase in the pogo tax as a result of the fact that they are making reasonable amount of money from their daily activities in the country.
I really do not think the government would allow them go considering the fact that they get good money from them. All the issues could be resolved amicably with extra pay on the  negotiation table.

It has already been used for illegal activities, human trafficking, you name it. The inability of the Philippine government to regulate these casinos effectively has resulted in an increase in criminal activities. It seems like operators know which countries they can operate in and they know that the Philippines is lax in implementing the laws about these online casinos. So they have really enjoyed their operations here. In fact, there are reports that they aren't paying the correct taxes, so they have made a lot of profit not only in gambling but in everything that generates them money. I wouldn't be surprised if these crypto ponzi schemes, some of them are coming from this operation too.

I had already heard about them, but I believe I never played in them, as I don't remember participating in a Philippine casino.
Besides, those kind of games aren't my style.

But, from what I've researched here, it seems that this has actually been a pretty big problem there, as recently the president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, ordered the closure of a network of online casinos associated with a series of criminal activities in the country. who did these live broadcasts with half-naked women.
It seems to me that these sites are mainly used by bettors from China, where betting is illegal.

An interesting fact that I got here is that according to the Philippine government itself, the Pogos industry is made up of more than 400 licensed and unlicensed companies, employing 40 thousand people directly and indirectly and generating an estimated revenue of US$2.9 billion .

I don't see many problems with the game itself, but when it comes to illegality, especially in this format that includes women, there is a great risk of these online casinos starting to be used as a front for crimes such as human trafficking.

If those speculative ideas have been really affecting negatively to Philippines, I believed the authority should do the quickest actions for this serious matter. Once that rumoured spying have been confirmed, I guess that's really putting the country's sovereignty behind other country since there's a lot of issues that's really a lot of people brought up specially their conflicts with west Philippine sea. Actually this games of pogo, it has no concrete evidence that there's a lot of people participating it but I guess online gaming through smartphones was still a part of their operations within the country.

I also heard POGO for first time and because of your post I understood that it's somehow related to Philippines people. I have personally never tried those games because I'm not from Philippines but sure the ones who belong to Philippines might have played those games and the experience of playing those games might be satisfactory for them. I avoid playing at multiple casinos and have chosen only a few casinos that work properly for me.

I have not even heard about the word before now, and I also got to find out that POGOs is an abbreviation that means "Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators." 

I am usually satisfied with the games my favorite casino offers, and because I have become a season gambler, I don't explore new casinos. People from the Philippines or their neighboring countries will be more familiar with those gaming operators because, even in my country, I don't think I have found anyone discussing them. 

I have not played with POGO before and i don't think it's a bad idea to that extent for any gambler to decide on using them for their own gambling experience, i know well on how the government had been raging attacks on gambling itself, taking it as a means of perpetrating illicit activities which is contrary to the main purpose people are gambling, if you think the risk is worth it with gambling with POGO, then go ahead and good luck, because the government will always have something to say against anything they were not in support of.

Yes now I understand and thank you for the detailed explanation... I also read other comments about POGO where there are many dark practices in it, so this is a provider for foreigners.

Nope because these POGOs aren't for us, Filipinos but they're made certainly for their people, the Chinese. The meaning of POGO is 'Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators' and that's why they're not for us but it is true that many crimes have been made there. Kidnapping of their own kind and torturing of their agents because they're moving on the other side of it not just being a POGO but also a scam hub for which is run by a big syndicate in Asia not only in our country.

Office space? Or it also commercial space because here in Europe we differentiate between that and the 1 million number would be insane, that would be half of what's available in Prague for offices, and at the same time it's an average of $300/sqm, that's closer to Belgium averages.
I think they obviously inflate those numbers, it simply can't be real.

Then we have this:

Hmm, it becomes even weirder with more details
I thought those were only for foreigners, so they restricted Filipinos from it, so why would then citizens be involved...
At the same time, to be honest, I wouldn't care what foreigners do with their own if the Chinese have a beef with Chinese loan sharks and ask people in China to pay up, it's their goddamn problem, not mine, it's not about racism or anything, but if I were to see on street two foreign drug dealers killing each other over money I would say two problems solved.

Hard to tell actually which is which but most likely yes I have plaayed with one of the games they are providing especially with fiat based casinos. There's nothing wrong with how they provide gambling games and services but operational activities are the bottomline here. I also agree with how big its contribution with the mentioned country's economy and that's really a loss to them as well. But for sure they came up with this conclusion because of the crime rate relaated with POGOs in particular with violent incidents concerning their workers. Has been long existing actually, and was just being considered because of taxes.
I doubt as well with complete restriction and prohibition of its operation. Most likely the government is eyeing for higher taxes and regulation for such kind of business. Well, we do know how things are working in the Philippines; almost everything could be paid.

After the online gambling casino became trend there's is a lot of social media influencers promoting their different casino is some are regulated by the government and one of these is the POGOs I've seen tons of people still keep playing because of the videos fed by them by these streamers that they can instantly win in those casinos  games, personally I didn't play at all because I know the risk and we know that not all the time we have the faith and luck in playing casino I keep doing stick with the crypto casino that I've been knew for a long time than taking risk to bind my socials, and of course in PH the e-wallet they bind into those account.


Actually with the poor government is the reason I don't know why people keep doing a vote to those who does not have a potential just having a backer so they can easily sit and manipulate those regulations and those POGO's can operate freely.

OP, I would like to say that there is every possibility that you would not get an honest answer based on you comment and post made here where you have made mention of the Chinese government sending spy to the Philippines to spy on them. People would think otherwise for mentioning that and would not say anything about your questions but can or would only make a general statement.

Looking at the Philippines, we all know that the nation has nothing to hold onto as a source of revenue generation for them and as a result they do not attract foreign nationals to their country.  Casinos have been a major source of revenue generation for the country and with this singular reason, I think it would be very difficult for the Philippines government to ban POGO irrespective of the fact that it is a Chinese owned company.

The government can only implement some policies to checkmating the activities of POGO so as to further prevent unwanted nuisance in the society as a reason of their activities in the country. Closing POGO would definitely increase the problems because people would be relieved of their jobs, no revenue for the government which would reduce or affect their national budget, the rate of crime would increase and lots more. I believe the government would act wisely to protect her interest first not minding the Chinese government interference because if they take any drastic decision, they would have themselves to blame.

For financial scamming - pandemic hits, perhaps their income was not as it used to be, and so the Chinese who is known to execute pig butchering scam.

Prostitution - Some POGO offices are being used as a front for prostitution den

Kidnapping, brutal torture, murder - they even kidnap their own people in the Philippines who can't pay the money they have loan. There are reports that they threaten them and then they call their relatives in China to raise money. If they can't raise money, then they torture and even killed them.

So in short, POGO being used as front by the Chinese in the Philippines and very well using the country as their hub.

It’s already officially declared banned.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/23/asia/philippines-pogos-ban-illegal-gambling-intl-hnk/index.html
I don’t think the money is worth allowing such operations to happen in the country. Back then before it was allowed to operate, many politicians thought that it wasn’t wise to let POGOs operate in the country but alas those in favor prevailed and now this is what happened.
No. I am guessing a lot of big and powerful names are the clients of these operations. Maybe some associated with government officials, maybe not from the country but from outside of it. After all, the suspended mayor and now hiding, Alice Guo, was associated with POGO with billions of money entering her bank accounts.

This news is more than about the POGO itself. There seem to be cases of identity theft and spy accusations which is really bothering for the government considering the territorial fight the Philippines has with China.

Yea Pogo gambling is strange to me also, I don't even know it's also use for gambling. though I have played pogo Scrabble game but I believe it to be a game of fun but not a gambling game. Well any game can be used for gambling depending on individual. The aspect of recommendation I agree with you because there are thousands of games online like the way new shitcoin and altcoin are flooding the crypto market which you wouldn't know the one to buy. So I prefer going for the one I know its easier for me which is the football betting game.

Since I'm from the Philippines, I think I could have played in POGO many times. We have local wallets like Gcash and Paymaya that you can directly go and gamble and most likely it will pointed out to local POGO with live dealers as they are all Filipinos.

But in any case though, latest news is that the government is putting a total ban on POGO. And now the authorities are raiding every POGO in the country because they are looking for the big head, not just one mayor who recently being under investigated by the Senate.

Pretty sure it became so big because one of the officials of the city where the POGO raid happened was seemingly involved in the running of that POGO. It became a really big thing because of how said official seemingly has an unknown background and stuff (and was able to run as mayor for that city, surprisingly) and, well, that became big, so the POGO issue also became big.

As for playing in Pogos, no, have only played in online casinos so I don't think I have. 

Ig it was because they couldn't manage it. I'm personally down to managing gambling itself, but they tried, and the recent crackdowns showed that, well, they suck at it. And with the issues of illegal crimes happening in said pogos, I don't think them trying to improve its "management" would be something people would trust or agree with really.