Name change: No more POGO, just IGL

MANILA, Philippines — What’s in a name and acronym?

State gaming operator and regulator Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) may have solved the controversies surrounding POGOs or Philippine offshore gaming operators – through a change in nomenclature and acronym.

Alejandro Tengco, Pagcor’s chief executive officer and chairman, had gone to a global gambling summit in the world’s gambling capital – Las Vegas, Nevada in the US – to announce the change of label for the offshore gaming industry and business in the Philippines.

Tengco had also chosen global gaming industry publication Inside Asian Gaming to break the news on the name and acronym change.

In an exclusive interview at the recently concluded Global Gaming Expo or G2E summit in Las Vegas, Tengco reported that Pagcor will use the term “IGL” or Internet Gaming Licensee for all offshore gaming companies that will be accredited or issued a license to operate in the Philippines.

“This is the first time we are announcing this publicly, we will be using this new expression IGL from now on,” Inside Asian Gaming quoted Tengco in its Oct. 11 report.

Tengco explained that the change comes with the relicensing effort Pagcor had decreed for all erstwhile-known POGOs in the country.

In July, Pagcor issued “Internet Gaming License Regulations” that supposedly revised the previous “Offshore Gaming Regulations” in a bid to tighten regulations in the aftermath of various reported violations by POGO firms.

The reported issues, in turn, had drawn the attention of senators who, in the past few months, conducted numerous inquiries in aid of legislation over the operations of POGOs.

The inquiries eventually led some senators to institute a POGO ban in the country.

Tengco, in his interview, said that Pagcor is expecting to come out with a full list of newly licensed IGLs by the end of this month.

Inside Asian Gaming recalled that in a previous interview with Tengco, Pagcor’s top executive said that the list of new relicensed POGOs will include the web addresses of all legal online gaming websites.

“There will be 55 to 65 licenses issued and there will no longer be service provider licenses, it will just be an IGL license,” Tengco said.

Tengco, since his appointment to the Pagcor top post last year, has remained inaccessible to local media and failed to set a press conference to bare his agenda or provide transparency and updates on the gaming regulator even as it supposedly tried to effect an ambitious privatization of all Pagcor-operated casinos and transition to a purely regulatory role.