Gaming revenues seen topping 1190 B
The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) expects to exceed the projected revenues of the industry this year amid rosy operations of the integrated resorts along with the growing online gaming business.
Andrea D. Domingo, Pagcor chairperson, said that gross gaming revenue (GGR) are seen to hit 1192 billion this year, exceeding the 1186 billion original target by the country’s gambling regulator.
Domingo also said the emerging GGR is higher by 14 percent compared with the previous year.
“Our performance this year is better than expected for both the private integrated resorts and the Pagcorowned casinos,” Domingo said, adding that the online gaming sector was also experiencing substantial growth in bets from overseas players.
The Pagcor chief also predicted that the gross gaming revenue of the industry would rise further to 1217 billion by 2019, or a yearly increase of 13 percent.
Amid the improving local gaming sector, Domingo earlier assured that Filipino workers are not at a disadvantage in the industry amid the influx of Chinese nationals in the country.
Domingo said that foreign nationals are not taking over jobs that could have been for Filipinos, citing that only 75 percent of the workers employed by online gaming operators are foreigners.
Domingo also said that local jobs given to Chinese nationalities are “distinct,” which mainly requires linguistic expertise in the complex languages of China.
While there are Filipinos who could speak Mandarin, Cantonese, or Hokkien, Domingo explained that their diction and accent are different than the mainland Chinese.
“You should know the nuance of the language and the culture is also a factor, especially when you give the good news and the bad news, so it’s a different kind of expertise,” Domingo said.
She also said that online gaming’s call centers in the country are labor intensive, but the qualifications are hardly met by Filipino workers.
“The business can’t operate without hiring the foreign nationals because it has distinct qualifications for its workers. About 75 percent of its employees are in the call center,” Domingo disclosed.
The Pagcor chief also added if Filipinos can only meet the requirements and qualifications for the job, online gaming operators would definitely prefer to hire local talents as they will save on labor costs.
“It’s cheaper to hire locally because they will no longer need to worry about accommodation and food. Now because they are all foreigners, the operators need to provide everything and they need to pay higher salary because it’s in foreign currency,” Domingo said.
POGOs are Pagcor-licensed entities offering online games of chance via the Internet exclusively to registered offshore players, excluding Filipinos here and abroad.
“For example if you have a big time player, but the call center agent and the player can’t understand each other over the phone, how can you effective convince the potential client to engage in playing?” Domingo asked.
She, however, pointed out that Chinese nationals will not rob other local work opportunities as Pagcor assures Filipinos also get jobs in the online gaming sector.
“In their call centers, there are no Filipinos who can qualify because of the language requirement,” Domingo said, but in other areas like dealers, IT support, backend and administration operations, office staff, drivers, cooks, janitors among others are given to Filipinos.