The Numbers Add Up

Edna Salaguban, a government auditor with the Commission on Audit, will remember these numbers for the rest of her life: 3175-1277. That was the winning raffle entry in the Premyo Sa Resibo draw for Jan. 19, 2007. Edna joins dozens of others who have become instant millionaires. Since PSR started in June 2006, the program to encourage consumers to demand official receipts has so far given away P37 million in prizes.

Someone else will remember this sequence: 35758318. That, after the Jan. 26 draw, became worth a million pesos.

You Are The Collateral

The world’s richest country will soon stage its biggest sports game of the year, the Super Bowl. This year’s big game pits a defensive-minded underdog team from Chicago, Illinois against an offensive juggernaut from Indianapolis, Indiana. If you see images of mobsters when you hear the words “Chicago” and “sports” uttered in one sentence, here’s what the Chicago Tribune has to say: 

Jim Wagner, president of the Chicago Crime Commission, said gambling is still a big moneymaker for organized crime and most local bookmakers must pay a percentage to the Outfit. Unlike casinos and Internet sites, they’re willing to take wagers on credit, but woe be to the gambler who can’t make good on his bet.

“They’ll have you sell whatever you have, your car, your house,” he said. “If you don’t have any property to sell, you are the collateral.”

Sports betting is technically a misdemeanor in Illinois, punishable by a fine of up to $2,500 and a year in jail.

But John Gorman, spokesman for the Cook County state’s attorney’s office, said he cannot recall a prosecution dealing with Super Bowl gambling in recent years.

UIGE Acts, Asia Rejoices

Here’s an analysis of what the US has wrought after passing its Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement (UIGE) Act.

The land-based boom in Macau is an indicator of the revenues that can be generated in the region while the liberalisation of casino gambling in Singapore and the introduction of a licensing region in the Philippines has led many to conclude that historically strict approaches to gambling are relaxing. The industry re-focus is well-timed. Online gambling has not previously even been a viable commercial option in many parts of Asia given the limited access to the internet, and particularly broadband services, yet the US fallout comes at a time when high-speed internet access in Asia is growing dramatically.

So  all those servers that used to take bits & bytes from the U.S. are hopping on a plane, traveling to Asia where a gambling license – and enough bandwidth – is available.

The solicitor from UK says:

The Cagayan region of the Philippines is the only Asian jurisdiction currently to licence online gambling. Therefore, in the absence of a Cagayan licence (or, albeit unlikely, a domestic operating licence), operators in Asia need to obtain a licence in a Western jurisdiction.

Then again, even those watching the industry may not be able to keep up with the pace of change. Check out this site.

Gravity Shift

It’s inevitable, they would say. As our giant neighbor-to-the-north China gets richer, there’s more disposable income, and that money will inevitably find its way into . . . . what the industry likes to call “leisure activities.”   

The NYTimes says in 2006, Macao brought in more revenue than the famed Las Vegas strip. So soon, the one city in the world’s most populous country where it’s legal to bet will supplant Las Vegas as the global byword for gambling. 

 ”What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” was a phrase in an ad promoting the U.S.’s Sin City. Does “What happens in Macao, stays in Macao” have the same ring? Just hope that Macao’s limited land area for expansion will mean a spillover of the Sino gambling crowd into the Philippines.

Fueled by a casino investment boom and the millions of Chinese visitors flooding in, Macao said its gambling revenue had soared 22 percent in 2006, to $6.95 billion. A Portuguese colony that was returned to China in 1999, Macao is the only place in China where gambling is legal, and last year it attracted more than 22 million visitors, mostly from China.

This year, Macao may take in $8 billion in gambling revenue, according to industry analysts, up from $2 billion in 2001. Macao is still behind the entire state of Nevada, which in 2005 reported close to $12 billion in gaming revenue. “Whether or not Macao passed Las Vegas last year is just a headline,” said Harry Curtis, a gambling analyst at JPMorgan. “The fact is, as we stand today, Macao is going to be a bigger market than Las Vegas. And by the end of the decade it could be twice the size of Las Vegas.”

A Chance to Test Skills, or Skilled at Taking Chances?

In Britain, where the health system’s acute labor shortages are drawing many of our nurses, a court made a landmark decision last week. You can expect that given the creativity of Filipino entrepreneurs, some will test the boundaries of Philippine jurisprudence and seek clarity on where to draw the line between games of chance and games of skill.  

Derek Kelly, the chairman of a private members’ club in London, lost his fight to make poker exempt from gambling legislation on the grounds that it was a game of skill.

He was found guilty of breaking the 1968 Gaming Act, after hosting two poker games at the Gutshot club, bar and restaurant in Clerkenwell, Central London. The jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court found him guilty of breaching the Act on December 7, 2004, when a levy was charged on the winnings, and on January 27, 2005, when a fee was charged to take part.

The Act states that a licence is needed to host games of chance such as blackjack and roulette, but not games of skill, such as chess and quiz machines. The trial was seen as a test of whether poker should fall under the remit.

Betting on Sports Betting

Sports aficionados will have another outlet to place their pesos where their passions are. The story from ABS-CBN News:

State-controlled gaming operator Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR) has approved the sports-betting contract between PhilWeb Corp. and RTG Studio Inc.

The original company disclosure here:
http://www.pse.com.ph/html/disclosure/pdf/2007/pdf/dc2007-0446_WEB.pdf

Proxy Betting & Proof of Life

In the old days, when people needed independent evidence that Event A had happened after Event B, they would use the front page of a daily newspaper. In kidnappings, the “proof of life” that the hostage was still alive as of a certain date involved a picture of the hostage holding up the latest daily.

In Internet Era, what’s the modern-day equivalent of “proof of life”? If you are some high-roller rich enough to send a representative to an exotic locale to gamble on your behalf, what’s your proof that the rep isn’t colluding with the house in fixing a game against you? Find out here, and its application to proxy betting:

“Live video streaming makes the facility novel, in that betting is real time,” Hernandez explained. “A live CNN display on a monitor gives all players the indication that the video is live, on real time,” he added.

Corner of the Sky

Take a map of Luzon. Run your fingers to the northern edge of the Philippines’ most populous island.  Then make your way to the island’s northeast corner where you will find a small, sleepy town called Sta. Ana. 

If the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority is successful, the place, with the help of P6 billion worth of hotels, golf courses, ports, and in the age of the Internet, fiber-optic cabling, will  become well known among Asian gamblers.  Some buzz already starting from the Manila Standard: 

No less than President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo led the groundbreaking in December last year of the P800-million Eastern Hawaii Casino Hotel and Resort, which will provide a larger venue for Internet gaming in the area.

A 300-room hotel will be built in the property, together with a convention center, a golf course, retirement villas and housing for expatriates.

Sources said that foreign tourists, particularly Chinese casino players, had been arriving in large groups on chartered flights to Tuguegarao City, which is a two-hour drive to Sta. Ana.

25, followed by nine zeroes

See here Pagcor’s performance for 2006.  The question to ask is: how big can Pagcor grow, given that Asia is seeing an upsurge in the gambling/gaming industry? Pagcor has long been an “export company”, deriving a big chunk of its revenue from regional high-rollers who plane in to catch the action in any of its casinos.

But the game is changing. Galloping wealth in China will see a horde of Chinese tourists eager to test their luck. Even with casinos opening up in Singapore, Korea, besides those already famous ones in Macau, will there be enough for the army of punters from the People’s Republic?

Last of the Mohicans

When the cultural winds shift, who’ll be left to carry on, or expand upon, a lifetime of accumulated knowledge?  

Read about Mike Ratliff, an octogenarian in Texas. Always the passage of a society’s norms is best told through the eyes of one man.

Ratliff is perhaps the greatest cockfighter that ever lived. In 1968, he opened the only cockfighting school in America. Over the years he taught an estimated 8,000 students, some from as far away as the Philippines.

Then in November, at the age of 83, Ratliff announced he had taught his last class. The Humane Society rejoiced. They called it the end of an era.

“There’s not many of us left,” Ratliff says of the cockfighters he grew up with. “They’re all gone. Dead. They’re trying to make criminals out of the rest of us.”