How China’s love of online betting is boosting the Philippine property sector
- Chinese gaming firms took up 30 per cent of the 775,000 square metres of office space built in the Philippine capital last year
The Chinese passion for betting has become a major driver of the Philippine property market.
The country has become a magnet for Chinese online gambling operators, barred from setting up shop at home and stifled in Macau by measures aimed at curbing the spending of wealthy mainlanders.
Warmer relations between Beijing and Manila under President Rodrigo Duterte have underpinned the influx; Chinese gaming firms took up 30 per cent of the 775,000 square metres of office space built in the Philippine capital last year.
But it is not just the commercial real estate segment that has benefited from the boom. Many of the gaming companies have bought flats for their workforces, estimated at between 100,000 and 200,000 people in total.
In 2017, US$184 million of the Philippines’ US$2.92 billion of gambling revenue came from online betting, a 14 per cent increase from 2016. Although a breakdown of the number is unavailable, it is widely accepted that the country’s online gaming industry is dominated by Chinese companies and punters.