Congress' Knee-Jerk Reaction Runs Smack Into Hard Truth: Prohibition Won't Stop Gambling

The knee-jerk reaction of Congress to ban online gambling fails to recognize a hard truth: prohibition won’t stop gambling—it will merely push it underground, where tech-savvy operators thrive beyond government control.

PAGCOR’s regulatory framework is not perfect, but it delivers—and it delivers not just oversight, but outcomes.

This move doesn’t just hand the reins to the black market; it risks cutting off vital revenues that the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) generates by regulating the sector.

These revenues are not abstract line items.

They fund the purchase of ambulances for local governments, support the construction of IT learning centers and multi-use school buildings that serve as evacuation hubs, and provide dividends remitted directly to the national government.

In the first quarter alone, PAGCOR’s e-gaming revenue hit ₱51.39 billion—nearly half of the industry’s total take. This is money that fuels public service—not private pockets.

A ban would slam the door not only on regulation but also on public benefit. And all for what? To pretend the internet can be switched off by legislation?

In a world where the internet can’t be barricaded, the choice isn’t between gambling and no gambling. The real choice is between regulated gambling and rogue gambling—daylight or darkness, public gain or private impunity.

PAGCOR’s regulatory framework is not perfect, but it delivers—and it delivers not just oversight, but outcomes.

Every peso collected under its watch is a peso that can be tracked, taxed, and transformed into service: an ambulance dispatched to a rural town, a school that doubles as an evacuation center, a dividend that shores up government finances.

Prohibition, by contrast, removes that visibility. It does not end gambling—it ends governance.

Rather than driving this industry into the shadows, let us light it better. We don’t need to switch off the screen; we need to fix the lens. Because in the battle between oversight and the underworld, it is not prohibition that wins. It is vigilance. It is visibility. It is regulation.