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Events


IAGA SUMMIT San Francisco 2019


Hermio Ozaeta Jr., Senior Partner, Romulo Mabanta Buenaventura Sayoc & De Los Angeles


Herminio (“Mio”) Ozaeta Jr. is a Senior Partner of the firm and a member of its Executive Board. Mio heads the Technology, Media, and Telecommunications practice which includes the firm’s emerging gaming practice. Romulo is a pioneer in the flourishing gaming industry in the Philippines and Mio’s team has been instrumental in bridging the gap between the regulators and industry players today.


Mio specializes in business-focused strategic legal advice related to commercializing and deploying innovative technologies and business models in the Philippine market. He advises and assists various companies in setting up their Philippine presence following the development of a regulatory framework for online gaming and support-service firms.


Mio represents clients in dealings with various government agencies, including the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation, the National Telecommunications Commission, and the Department of Information and Communications Technology. He is often a resource person, speaking on gaming in the Philippines, and has contributed gaming-related articles published abroad by Lex Mundi, IAGA and G2E Asia.


His clients include large integrated resorts (“IR”) operators, online gaming operators, software developers, land-based casinos, real estate companies, entertainment/multimedia companies, gaming machine manufacturers and suppliers, economic zone developers and other industry stakeholders.


WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE PHILIPPINES?


Last month, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (“PAGCOR”)- the Philippines’ gaming regulator, announced that in 2018, it recorded its highest revenue in history, which amounted to P104.12 billion. Tis allowed PAGCOR to remit its single largest annual dividend to the national government in 2018. PAGCOR stated that it turned over P16.17 billion (US$309.0 billion) in cash dividends to the national treasury for the 2018 operating year, which was just short of the total cash dividends from 2011 to 2017 combined. Te increase in revenue was due to the strong performance of casinos across the country. PAGCOR chair and CEO Andrea Domingo said this was “just the tip of the iceberg.”


Morgan Stanley Asia Ltd. quoted early this year that casino gaming is “growing faster in the Philippine market” than in “Las Vegas, Macau, and Singapore.” MSA Analyst Praveen Choudhary made the observation in the context of a memo looking at Philippine casino firm Bloomberry Resorts Corp’s first-quarter results. Te banking group said it expected Bloomberry Resorts – which runs the Solaire Resort and Casino integrated resort in Manila– to show a 16 per cent growth in EBITDA for 2019, which would “exceed that of regional peers”. Morgan Stanley expects Macau’s six operators to record an average EBITDA expansion of “only” four per cent.


EXPANSION OF INTEGRATED RESORTS Tere are currently four integrated resorts operating


in Manila, Resorts World, Solaire, City of Dreams and Okada. All of them have announced plans to expand their existing operations in the country.


P66 NEWSWIRE / INTERACTIVE / MARKET DATA


In January 2018, President Rodrigo Duterte imposed a moratorium on new land-based casinos stating that there is already a proliferation of land-based casinos in the country. Chairman Domingo has stated that the moratorium will last until the “market matures and is ready to take in new entrants.”


PAGCOR later clarified that the moratorium, however, does not prevent operators who already submitted applications to PAGCOR prior to the moratorium, from continuing with their planned projects. As of today, around seven other IRs are planned to be constructed in different parts of the country, mostly outside Metro Manila.


Just a few weeks ago, President Duterte was again quoted as saying that he will no longer interfere in the regulation of gaming operations in the Philippines. It is unclear whether this means the moratorium on granting new franchises for land-based casinos will be lifted, but it seems that the administration is pleased with PAGCOR’s contribution to the national treasury.


PHILIPPINE OFFSHORE GAMING OPERATORS In 2016, in response to President Duterte’s call to


regulate the proliferation of illegal and/or unregulated online gaming and gaming-related activities in the Philippines, PAGCOR promulgated the Rules and Regulations for Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (“POGO Rules”). POGO refers to an entity that offers and participates in offshore gaming services by providing games to players, taking bets, and paying the winning players. Te gaming activity refers to online games of chance through the internet, using a network and software, exclusively for


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