A total of 193 requests for exclusion from gaming venues in the Philippines was received by the country’s authorities in the first half of 2023. That compared with a total of 333 such requests in full-year 2022, according to official data.
For the first time in three years, there were three requests classified as licensee-generated. The last time that type of application had been submitted by the country’s gaming-operator community had been in 2020.
The data did not specify which operator or operators filed the requests, nor the respective reason for such submissions.
There were 83 applications for self-exclusion in the six months to June 30, compared to 81 such requests in the prior-year period, according to data from the National Database for Restricted Persons (NDRP), published this week by the country’s casino regulator, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (Pagcor).
In the first half this year, 107 of the individuals excluded were barred due to applications made by family members. In the previous comparable period, there had been 83 such applications.
The NDRP is a computerised database listing those restricted from playing in the country’s gaming establishments. It is operated and regulated by Pagcor.
The gaming regulator said the player exclusion programme is to “provide patrons who feel that relatives or [they] themselves are developing a problem with gambling,” with the option of being barred “from all gaming venues or sites”.
Since data on the exclusion of people from casinos was first compiled in September 2013, a total of 2,725 requests for exclusion has been submitted to the local authorities. Of those, 807 were still active as of June 30, according to the data.
