POGOs cease operations on President's orders

Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) ceased operations in December 2024 on orders of the President, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) said in its 2024 annual report¹. The closure followed President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.'s announcement during the State of the Nation Address on July 22, 2024 banning POGOs, after which PAGCOR said it "facilitated a structured transition to comply with the new policy"¹.

The labor department had put the number of workers facing displacement at 26,996, employed by 54 Internet Gaming Licenses (IGLs) companies and attached service providers, mostly in the National Capital Region and Region 4-A, with a further 2,549 indirect Filipino workers². PAGCOR separately said as many as 42,000 Filipino workers would be affected, a figure it said covered IGL workers, service providers and special business process outsourcing firms². The two agencies gave different totals; the labor department's count was based on profiling of 33 IGLs, 11 accredited providers and 10 special class BPO firms².

Offshore operations contributed Php38.14 billion to industry-wide gross gaming revenue before they stopped, bringing total industry GGR to Php410.47 billion, PAGCOR said¹. The wider Philippine gaming industry recorded GGR of Php372.33 billion in 2024, a 30.52% increase from the previous year, while PAGCOR's own revenues reached Php112 billion, up 41%¹. The electronic games and electronic bingo sector contributed Php154.51 billion to total GGR, a 165.66% increase from Php58.16 billion the previous year¹.

The ban was announced in July 2024, and the labor department said at the time that the total ban would take effect by end-December². The department said it would organize a job fair specifically for affected IGL workers in the first week of October and was considering referring displaced workers to existing vacancies, alongside possible upskilling and retooling². The country's unemployment rate rose to a one-year high of 4.7% in July, or 2.38 million unemployed Filipinos, up by 755,000 from June².

What it means for players

Offshore-facing operators licensed in the Philippines have stopped taking business, so players who used POGO-branded sites and apps are dealing with closed or migrated accounts rather than active Philippine-licensed offshore play. Domestic-facing gambling is a separate matter: PAGCOR continues to regulate and license land-based casinos, electronic games and electronic bingo, and its 2024 report records growth in those sectors¹. The rules that apply to a player depend on which license an operator holds and where the player is located, and the sources here do not set out how individual player balances, withdrawals or disputes involving closed POGOs are handled. That has not been reported.

What happens next

PAGCOR's report records several dated steps around the transition and its own operations¹:

No further enforcement dates for the POGO ban are given in the sources.

For background on the ban and what remains legal, see The Philippines' Ban on Offshore Gaming (POGOs), Can I Gamble in the Philippines? and Can I Play at Online Casinos in the Philippines?. For the regional picture, see Crackdowns on Offshore Online Gambling Hubs in Asia and Online Gambling in Asia: The Law for Players in 12 Jurisdictions.