Privatisation of gaming venues under the Casino Filipino brand owned by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (Pagcor), the country’s regulator, is now expected to start in 2026, not mid-2025, says Pagcor chairman Alejandro Tengco.

In comments to the media, Mr Tengco said Pagcor’s charter would have to be amended first.

“We still have to amend the charter of Pagcor. So next year will be allocated for the amendments,” he added, as quoted by the Philippine Star news outlet.

Regarding the privatisation effort, the official noted: “There are a lot of things to do. It’s not as easy as we thought it would be. And our priorities include modernisation, the lessors.”

Mr Tengco told reporters that the disposal of Pagcor casinos was likely to generate about PHP50 billion (US$891.3 million). That is a figure lower than a PHP60 billion number previously mentioned, which was itself reduced from an earlier PHP80 billion that Pagcor had mentioned.

“Initially, I thought it was going to be big. But unfortunately, I realised that we do not own any property, we’re just leasing,” Mr Tengco said, as city by the Philippine Star.

This week Mr Tengco also mentioned that Casino Filipino venues are to receive by mid-September nearly 2,000 “new and modern slot machines”, as part of the agency’s modernisation programme, ahead of privatisation.

The Pagcor boss expects revenues from the licensed casino sector and electronic games – known as e-games locally – to contribute PHP275 billion and PHP100 billion, respectively in gross gaming revenue (GGR) by the end of the year.