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Jean Mangaluz - Philstar.com
July 3, 2025 | 5:27pm
A file photo of the central bank of the Philippines
Businessworld / File
MANILA, Philippines — The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is drafting a measure aimed at protecting consumers from the proliferation of online gambling.
In a statement on Thursday, July 3, the BSP said it will issue a circular on the matter, which is still under review by stakeholders.
“The circular would seek to require BSP-supervised institutions, primarily banks and electronic money issuers, to better protect users of their digital platforms from these risks. Protection may come in the form of various limits to gaming access,” the BSP said.
The central bank said it wants to strike a balance between protecting consumers and still allowing digital payments to be used by licensed businesses.
The BSP said it has several existing initiatives related to online gambling, including a prohibition on dealing with unlicensed gambling entities and an order for supervised inst itutions to remove links on their platforms to e-sabong.
With the 20th Congress opening, several lawmakers have filed bills seeking to regulate or ban online gambling.
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian has filed a measure to regulate online gambling. The bill would prohibit gambling sites from linking directly to digital wallets such as GCash and would raise the minimum bet to P10,000.
Meanwhile, Sens. Joel Villanueva and Pia Cayetano have filed separate bills seeking to ban online gambling entirely.
