“Effective today, all POGOs (Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators) are banned.”
This rousing statement by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was met with thunderous applause during his third State of the Nation Address last July. His supplementary Executive Order No. 74 provided leeway for cessation of operations until the end of 2024, reflecting the public outcry against alleged human rights abuses, including debt bondage, torture, and forced labor.
Former President Rodrigo Duterte’s pro-POGO legislation has nonetheless cultivated societal curiosity and inclination toward online gambling, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was kicking into high gear. Dr. Sixtus Dane Ramos from the Department of Psychology describes: “Situational attributes of online gambling make it more attractive to people who gamble…[including] accessibility, 24/7 availability, convenience, anonymity [or] privacy, and diversity of games [and] websites.” Despite the lack of Philippine-based online gambling studies, The Minnesota Star Tribune estimated 1.2 million active players in the country in 2022.
The POGO ban is an unprecedented victory that has been a long time coming. But as the online gambling industry transforms to a behemoth, has it come a little too late?
The ‘fun’ part begins
Since 2021, the online gambling market has been steadily growing due to its low barrier of entry for newcomers. Far Eastern University student Pogi* only started early last year, yet he believes that “[t]here are times that I am [both] happy and sad with the effects of losing and winning.” Feeling the heights of euphoria and dredges of disappointment is all too familiar to many gamblers.
Take Fuji* (IV, BSMGT), who has always been fascinated by “the thrill of a chance of getting something.” He argues, “Growing up I played a lot of games because…there are lots of things that are technically not called gambling, but in a sense are also a form of gambling.” These can come in lucky pulls of Pokémon cards and specific photo cards obtained by buying K-pop albums.
Pogi turns to online gambling through the 737 Live Casino and Lightning Baccarat sites. The former is a reel-and-match game which requires little to no skill, while the latter’s main objective is to bet on a hand closest to the score of nine based on an arbitrary pointing system. As both games notoriously rely on luck, Pogi finds excitement in the unpredictability. “It’s a win-lose situation,” he starts. “I pick what my instinct tells me, and that is where the fun part begins.”
As a previous slot machine player, Fuji takes on a different view on these chance-based games: “They’re not in your favor at all…because the highest form of winning is [when]…you’re able to actually analyze and go over the 50-50 odds that you would [normally] have in a casino setting.” Instead, he channels his curiosity in sports and esports, betting on matches as they happen using foreign-owned 1xBet. “[Sports betting] enhances the [game watching] experience…makes it more hype in a way,” he clarifies.
Doubling down
Those who sink hours into online gambling credit its allure to the prospect of making a quick buck away from the leering eyes of competitors. While tempting, this line of thinking makes certain crowds susceptible to the detrimental habit. Combining research with clinical experience, Dr. Ramos identified these vulnerable parties to be those who display “higher impulsivity, [a] problematic decision-making capacity, deficits in executive functioning, and issues in the fronto-striatal brain circuitry.”
These individuals are lured not only by gambling’s inherently addictive nature, but by the high that comes with claiming victory and the ensuing chase to recoup losses. For online gamblers, this becomes relentless due to the misconception that digital spaces maintain fairer odds than traditional casinos. Thus, they see each win as an exercise of pure skill.
Fuji claims this from his esports betting experience: “Everything that you bet on is really just based on competition; there’s nothing that’s going to persuade the outcome.” He contrasts this with casinos, asserting that the ‘house’ can always manipulate outcomes in its favor. Whatever the case, Dr. Ramos warns of this “strong irrational belief that a person can ‘beat the system,’” one of numerous contributors to the dopamine rushes that keep gamblers hooked.
This unwavering drive even in the face of defeat is why the practice has been stigmatized as mere irresponsible fun for shady misdoers. Psychologists, therefore, prefer to classify gambling problems as disorders over addictions, emphasizing how severely it can impair a person’s daily functioning.
Unlike other disorders, where the addictive agents may be removed from an individual, there is no way to diligently monitor the activity of online gamblers nor many tangible symptoms to show for it. “As someone who’s gambled a lot in the past years, I wouldn’t recommend [it] because there’s so [many] psychological factors [that go] into it,” Fuji acknowledges, reinforcing how gambling does not stop at financial losses, but can also embed itself into one’s psyche.
A winning chance
As online gambling provides greater convenience for users, Dr. Ramos postulates that it could exacerbate impulsivity issues for individuals susceptible to gambling disorders. Even with the enforced POGO ban, a wide array of platforms operate under ambiguous guidelines, and public regulation grows difficult to enforce as establishments remain veiled within the Internet’s vast space.
For players like Fuji, ensuring safer gambling practices means setting clear restrictions on which games can transition to the virtual space. He proposes that high-stakes games should remain in the confines of a casino, as their online iterations employ random number generators that may be manipulated to “extort” players. However, Dr. Ramos stresses that political and economic policies alone—such as POGO closures—fail to tackle gambling disorders as they disregard medical nuances. As long as there is a psychological demand from these services, “these gambling hubs will evolve into different iterations with the same intention—to pose the same problems,” he explains.
To address gambling disorders, Dr. Ramos believes that evidence-based treatments and programs must be employed, which can be made possible by encouraging localized research. He underscores the importance of tailored education in minimizing potential adversities faced by those with developing gambling disorders and their larger communities.
But as the online gambling industry continues to expand, the social conventions and conceptions surrounding the practice remain reactive and adaptive. Even with rising concerns for mental health, data privacy, and financial literacy, individuals subscribed to gambling keep coming back for one thing: the “promise” of a life-altering grand prize in a financially exhaustive world.
*Names with asterisks (*) are pseudonyms.
With reports from Gwen Cabinbin
This article was published in The LaSallian‘s Menagerie Special 2025. To read more, visit bit.ly/TLSMenagerieSpecial2025.
