Philweb rebuilds for the future

Two years ago a bitter clash between the then newly elected Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte and Roberto V. Ongpin, at that time chairman of online gambling provider Philweb had almost disastrous consequences for the company; it lost its licensing from regional regulator Pagcor, and it took the best part of two years for it to regain approval and set about recovering much of its business lost to rival DFNN Instawin, which had taken on 220 of Philweb’s former operators.

By December last year, Philweb had recovered 16 gaming sites operated by a fully owned subsidiary, BigGames Inc. The latest Q1-2018 report shows that it is on the comeback trail with an impressive y-o-y 236.7 percent improvement in revenue and a reduction in its losses from P45.4 million to P4.4 million.

Philweb currently has 52 sites on its books, with 28 of those actually owned by its subsidiary BigGames.

The publication AGBrief reported this week that Philweb president Dennis Valdes has been spearheading the fightback with presentations to operators on the company’s future strategy epitomised by the slogan “Expect More”, at the centre of which is the company’s partnership with Habanero Systems BV.

The strategy is to provide a fresh and regularly augmented range of online games, including non-casino products, in order to reach a younger demographic as well as improving the player experience.

There are also plans to reactivate account action through a single wallet offering, which will be interfaced with PhilWeb’s POS and membership system.

Valdes told AGBrief that Habanero’s Viva Las Vegas social gaming platform will be rolled out on PhilWeb’s system through Q3, the second such offering following Magic Macau.

Philweb will also be introducing sports-betting games, virtual games, and a variety of other games, all linked to the single wallet.