In the first quarter of 2024, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (PAGCOR), reported a total income of PHP25.24 billion. This marks a 42.6 percent increase from the prior-year period. According to a Sunday press release, first-quarter income surged by 29.5 percent from the previous quarterly record of PHP19.49 billion achieved in the first quarter of 2019.
In a statement, PAGCOR chairman and chief executive Alejandro Tengco declared that the first-quarter earnings have placed the agency on track to achieve a historic milestone: reaching PHP100 billion in annual income for the year 2024. He expressed optimism, stating that this achievement would be a first in the 40-year history of the state gaming firm.
We are happy to announce that PAGCOR is able to sustain our growth trajectory in the first quarter of 2024 and this should help position us into achieving another record-breaking year
Alejandro Tengco, PAGCOR Chairman and CEO
The gaming regulator recorded a net operating income after expenses of PHP18.99 billion in the first three months of the year, marking a 54.2 percent increase from a year earlier.
Gaming operations accounted for the majority of the agency’s first-quarter revenues, totaling PHP22.29 billion. Nearly 43.5 percent of this amount, or PHP9.69 billion, was generated by the electronically-delivered gaming sector, such as “e-Bingo, e-Games, and bingo grantees,” PAGCOR stated.
Licensed commercial-sector casinos in the country contributed PHP8.04 billion, representing about 36.1 percent of first-quarter revenues.
However, revenues from PAGCOR’s publicly-owned Casino Filipino chain of gaming venues continued to decline, earning PHP3.7 billion, or 16.6 percent of the first-quarter aggregate tally. This was down from the nearly 20.7 percent share it contributed to PAGCOR’s revenues in the first quarter of 2023. Offshore gaming operations contributed just under PHP860.9 million, or 3.9 percent of the quarterly revenues.
Mr. Tengco reiterated that the country’s e-Games sector would be the agency’s major source of gaming revenues in the current year and in the foreseeable future, as innovation and technological integration allow the sector to offer more excitement and convenience to gamers.
He also emphasized the positive impact of robust earnings on the government’s various socio-civic programs, stating, “Our robust earnings also bode well for the government’s various socio-civic programs.”
Of the agency’s first-quarter net income, just under PHP15.6 billion will go to its contributions to nation-building programs, in the form of subsidies, financial assistance, and other contributions to the government. Among these payments, PAGCOR is legally required to pass at least 50 percent of its gross earnings to the national government.
In March, PAGCOR announced that it had remitted nearly PHP4.60 billion in cash dividends to the nation’s Bureau of the Treasury. This figure represented 75 percent of the agency’s net income attributed for the calendar year 2023, although a portion of the cash represented money that had been “advanced,” it said at the time.
PAGCOR anticipates that the nation’s gaming industry will generate PHP336.38 billion in gross gaming revenues this year, representing a 17.9 percent increase compared with 2023. The online gaming and land based gaming industry is still recording growth year on year and there seems to be more opportunities for even more growth in the future.
