Farm Town

Some news on First Cagayan from Bloomberg. Look at the story — it says just one licensed casino in the Cagayan freeport is drawing $13 million of bets a day. Phew!

It’s 11 p.m. and inside an office building on the northeastern tip of the Philippines a dozen people place wagers on blackjack and baccarat. No matter how much they bet, none of the gamblers will win — or lose — a thing.

They are all proxy bettors, making wagers on behalf of patrons who track the action and issue instructions from outside the country by way of a live Internet link.

“There is no place like this in Asia yet,” said Kan Goh, general manager of Eastern Hawaii Leisure Co., which operates the casino in Santa Ana, a town of 20,000 fishermen and farmers.

Cagayan Freeport, a 12-year-old special investment zone that includes Santa Ana, is using the gaming provisions in its charter to chase a slice of the estimated $12 billion wagered over the Internet each year. The zone is the first Asian jurisdiction to legalize online casinos, giving it a head start in the race to lure the region’s bettors.

The zone targets Chinese gamblers who helped Macau overtake Las Vegas as the biggest casino market last year, said Jose Mari Ponce, chairman of Cagayan Freeport, who rented his office to Eastern Hawaii as a temporary home. Harrah’s Entertainment Inc. and MGM Mirage, the largest casino operators, so far have failed to persuade the U.S. Congress to let them take Internet wagers.