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Opinion | Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte hates gambling, but money talks and he won’t throw away his big chip in Chinese online casinos game

  • Richard Heydarian writes that the Philippine president will swallow bitter pill of compromise, dissent from his defence chiefs, xenophobia, and fears of Chinese spies on his doorstep if it’s sugared with billions of dollars in revenues

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has stirred up a hornet’s nest at home with his support for Chinese-run offshore gaming operations, but the earning potential for his country is huge. Photo: Alamy

“The main thing about money,” said Lou Mannheim, a character in the 1987 film Wall Street, “is that it makes you do things you don’t want to do.”

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has found himself in just such a predicament after embracing highly lucrative Chinese online casino investments. As a result, Duterte has flown in the face of his misgivings about gambling.

Even more importantly, he has withstood vehement opposition – from his country’s influential defence establishment and from Beijing – to the expansion of so-called Philippine offshore gaming operations (POGOs), which are dominated by Chinese nationals.

Despite claiming that he “hates gambling”, and abruptly shutting down thousands of local lottery operations recently, Duterte has overseen a massive expansion of the Philippine gambling industry.

President Rodrigo Duterte has reconciled his personal opposition to gambling with the presence of lucrative Chinese online gaming operations in the Philippines. Photo: AP
President Rodrigo Duterte has reconciled his personal opposition to gambling with the presence of lucrative Chinese online gaming operations in the Philippines. Photo: AP
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Its revenues quadrupled to US$4.1 billion during his first three years in office. Licensing fees from new applications increased elevenfold and were expected to reach US$152 million by the end of the year.

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