Best Online Casinos in Philippines

The Philippines has a pretty unique legal situation when it comes to online gambling. Online gambling is actually legal in the country, but only via operators that are sanctioned by the state-run PAGCOR organization. In this way, the Philippines government holds a monopoly over all legal online gambling activities in the country. No other organizations are allowed to offer online gambling in the Philippines.

Here’s where the law gets a bit weird. While it’s illegal for anyone other that the state-run PAGCOR organization to offer online gambling, playing at offshore casino sites is allowed. In fact, it’s more beneficial for players to use international casino sites while in the Philippines. At this time, there are no laws surrounding the use of international casino sites from inside the Philippines.

Under the unique laws in the Philippines, legal online casinos are not actually licensed. However, legal online casino sites must be run by the state-owned PAGCOR organization. PAGCOR takes care of every aspect of the online gambling process, so licenses are not really necessary. Anyone other than PAGCOR who offers online gambling from inside the Philippines is breaking the law.

Overall, if you use a legal site that is run by PAGCOR, you are completely safe. One thing that the Philippines government did well was including robust player protections in all PAGCOR gambling operations. However, many players in the Philippines still choose offshore casino sites. These sites are safe too as long as they are properly licensed by reputable jurisdictions.

While PAGCOR controls all domestic online gambling in the Philippines, the country does allow licensing of online casino site for international players. That means that foreign operators can legally obtain gambling licenses for online casinos in the Philippines, but they cannot accept any players from the Philippines. These sites are essentially offshore casinos which accept international players. Overall, the offshore casino license from the Philippines is quite reputable.