Philippines campaign to encourage gambling support centre investment
News on 15 Jan 2018
News on 15 Jan 2018
Wally Sombero, a former Philippines police general and self-proclaimed online gambling facilitator and expert, has been doing the media rounds promoting the idea of the Philippines becoming an international hub for online gambling Customer Support Centres.
Our readers may recall that Sombero earned a certain notoriety in late 2016 for his part in “facilitating” dubious immigration and gambling deals for Hong Kong mogul Jack Lam following the arrest of 1,300 allegedly illegal Chinese workers in immigration raids.
Despite CCTV footage that captured Sombero handing a bag of money to Bureau of Immigration deputy commissioners Al Argosino and Michael Robles, the former police general was cleared of corruption allegations by a Blue Ribbon Senate investigative committee chaired by Senator Richard Gordon.
In an interview this week with the publication Rappler, Sombero enthusiastically extolled the virtues on hosting Support Centres manned by expats – mainly from China to answer the significant demand for Chinese-speaking customer support agents in online gambling.
In a stable and legal environment these agents could earn P108,000 a month, he said, estimating that they would pay taxes on this and also boost the local economy by spending around 60 percent of their disposable income on Philippine goods and services.
Sombero said there are about 200,000 “expats” in the Philippines – mostly Mandarin-speaking Chinese citizens – working for companies that service online gaming websites based abroad. They cater mostly to Chinese online gamers who prefer to talk with Chinese agents.
He said the industry goal is to have one million such employees by 2020, translating to P1.3 trillion a year in local spending, investment and additional government revenue.
Sombero emphasised that such Support Centres are service, not gambling, companies and should therefore not be subjected to repeated police and immigration raids, as this discouraged further investment in the sector..
