By Justine Irish D. Tabile, Reporter
SECRETARY Frederick D. Go, the special assistant to the President for investment and economic affairs, said restrictions on online gambling could take the form of more comprehensive know-your-customer (KYC) rules.
“There are a few things that are possible there. Number one is to be stricter on the KYC, meaning all the platforms can be stricter to ensure that nobody below 21, for example, is allowed to gamble,” Mr. Go said on Monday at the Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines Economic Forum.
He sees KYC as an effective means of determining whether an individual should be barred from gambling.
“A regulation that I believe should be seriously considered is raising the minimum bet and raising the minimum entry point,” he added.
He said raising the minimum bet is likely to reduce betting frequency.
He noted that Singapore casinos also require an entry fee, a practice that could be adopted by online gambling operators.
“For example, there’s a minimum entry level, let’s say P1,000, and a minimum bet of P100. That way you don’t have somebody coming in with P100 and betting everything he has on one bet,” he said.
INDIAN MARKET
Separately, Mr. Go said India has become a major trading, investment, and tourism partner of the Philippines.
However, he said the Philippines, with only 70,000 or so Indian visitors last year, is far behind its Southeast Asian neighbors.
“The number of Indian visitors to our Southeast Asian neighbors is in the hundreds of thousands, if not in the millions of visitors a year,” he said.
“I kept pushing for this within the sectoral groups to ensure that we allow easy entry for Indian tourists,” he added.
He said a recent positive development is that Indians with US, Japanese, Australian, Canadian, Schengen, Singaporean, or UK visas can now enter the Philippines visa-free for 14 days.
Regarding the launch of Air India direct service connecting New Delhi and Manila in October, he said: “I’m not even sure when the last time we had a direct flight to India was. But with access now to 1.5 billion people, I think we can be looking at major tourism numbers, major trade numbers, and major investment numbers coming from India,” he said.
He said the Philippine delegation led by President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. to India last week obtained $446 million in firm investment commitments, with the potential to grow to about $4.5 billion if other letters of interest come through.