7 arrested over illegal gambling machines in Tondo

MANILA, Philippines - Police arrested seven persons and seized eight gambling machines in a crackdown in Tondo, Manila last night.

Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim has ordered his 11 police station commanders and the chief of the District Public Safety Management Battalion (DPSMB) to put a stop on the reported proliferation of illegal gambling machines in the city.

With the opening of classes, students may be lured to gamble and may even commit petty crimes to sustain the habit, DPSMB chief Superintendent Nelson Yabut quoted Lim as saying. Lim reportedly tasked Yabut to organize a police squad against illegal gambling.

DPSMB policemen assisted the chiefs of the Balut, Moriones and Jose Abad Santos police stations in last night’s crackdown, arresting seven bettors and confiscating two color game boards, six “video karera” machines and bet money amounting to P425.

However, the illegal gambling operators identified as alias “Enyang” and “Gigi” managed to elude arrest, Yabut said.

He said the use of illegal gambling devices, such as video karera and fruit game machines, was already stamped out in the past.

The return of illegal gambling in Manila reportedly has the blessing and protection of a newly assigned police official in the city, according to Yabut.

He said gambling operators reportedly maintain fruit game and video karera machines in depressed areas in the city, where drug addicts, criminals and minors patronize them. Residents complain that crimes increase in areas where there is illegal gambling.

Yabut said his men are also training their sights on operators of illegal horseracing bookies and lotteng (a combination of the rules of lotto, a government-sponsored numbers game, and the illegal numbers game jueteng).