Topic: PAGCOR waiting for the approval to reopen land-based casinos. - page 11. (Read 2299 times)

Agree with this. The country cant able to produce a flat line result for the infection. Allowing the operations of casino would only result to non stop new cases.

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If the article is right and some land based casino are preparing then its gonna be a lot of a mess. I am sad with the fact that government lower the ECQ to GCQ allowing some of the companies and employees go to their work. Not because I dont want them to have money for a living but the sacrifices of frontliners were means nothing cause this decision will only surely increase cases definitely.

So better not to open those land based casino at all until there are some improvements seen on the results.

Nobody is safe but the national government needs the huge revenue that will be generated from both land-based and online casinos. The case in most countries now is to prioritize health concerns, keep businesses close and let the economy drop even more OR take the health risks, open businesses for the economy to slowly recover.

Judging by the news that the number health facilities that will handle infected patients increased in the past two months, I think the reopening will be approved. Let's just hope that the safety measures will be strictly implemented.

It's about revenue. It was a controversial topic in our local media (mainstream/social) before but POGO (Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators) were allowed to reopen partially.

Firstly, I have looked into some statistics from Google.

Philippines population: 105 million approx
Covid patient found till date: 18,997 (approx 0.018% of entire population)
Death: 966 (approx 5.1% of total infected)

I don't think it makes sense to stop operating businesses at this situation. As per the number, Philippines has done great in containing the virus. So I believe the casinos and other business should be allowed to start operating again. Then I look at the Google charts of daily infection trend. See below,



This data certainly doesn't give a good picture because the number of infection is rising on daily basis in Philippines. At this time, if non-essential businesses are allowed to operate, that would cause additional risks to the public health.

My conclusion:
Even though the infection percentage is pretty low and the number of deaths are also low, looking at the current trends doesn't really give confidence for non-essential businesses to operate. I believe Philippines will have to wait for more time unless the number of infection subsides. If it's a question of government revenue, Philippines government should consider promoting online casinos as an alternative.

Even where I am everything has been opened since 1st of June but unfortunately the number of infected people has been somewhat on the rise and I think this is normal.I think it is Ok to open everything even casinos but the thing every government needs to emphasize the most now is making people aware that the virus is still around us because the people think now everything is safe since we opened everything.

After 2 months of strict quarantine in the Philippines, PAGCOR (Philippines Amusement and Gaming Corporation) submitted an approval to resume land-based gaming to IATF (Inter-Agency Task Force). Last month they submitted the request including the proposed safety guidelines to follow by the operators.

Last March when the Philippines started its ECQ (Enhanced Community Quarantine) where most businesses have closed, and only essential businesses remain. While the start of June, they lifted the lockdown to GCQ (General Community Quarantine) were workers and employees can go back to work and the opening of some businesses. For the whole 2 months of ECQ, most businesses have no income, same with casinos. Until now, casinos are closed and gambling is still banned in the country to avoid crowded places.

Now, PAGCOR revealed that they submitted a request to resume the operations of land-based casinos. They included safety protocols such as;
-wearing of face masks
-strict compliance of social distancing
-limiting the capacity of not more than 50% to both table games and EGMs
-preventing standing bettors or loitering in the gaming areas.  

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Some land-based casinos have already shown their preparations for the possible reopening of casinos. Safety measures include regular disinfecting of equipment, thermal scanning, sanitation mats, and more. Big casinos are being monitored, waiting if they are planning to re-open soon.

This is good news for gamblers who badly want to gamble if they allowed the reopening of casinos. But knowing the correct situation, our country has already almost 19,000 positive cases, they might reject this request. And if ever they will reopen land-based casinos, perhaps only high-class people can gamble because lower-class gamblers don't gamble in a big casino. Personally, I don't know if they will approve this request or not because unlike the gamblers, the public will probably don't want to reopen casinos.

Do you think it's safe to reopen land-based gaming knowing that the cases are still increasing by hundreds every day?

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