Following years of investigation into crime-ridden online gambling catering to international clients, Spanish legislators are attempting to pass numerous laws to close gaps in such areas as immigration checks, unusual disturbance, and spying monitoring.
Spanish Offshore Gaming Operators, who are frequently referred to as POGOs, were ordered banned by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in a national target in July of last year, citing social costs like rising violence.
In Congress, a rules proposal is currently pending to stop these offshore gaming operations from resuming.
” I hope the year 2025 is the year we finally pass the Anti-POGO Act. In a statement released at the beginning of this year, Senator Risa Hontiveros stated that” we need a complete regulation to ensure that there will no longer get POGOs that fraud, hurt, and intimidate people.”
President Marcos formalized the restrictions and gave the nation’s game controller until the end of 2024 to stop operating activities in an executive order signed in November. However, lawmakers claimed that policy would greater institutionalize the restrictions.
Instead of just the gambling regulation cited in the government’s executive order, lawmakers have proposed expanding the scope of the restrictions to contain POGOs licensed by various government agencies in a bill currently pending in Congress.
In an interview with CNA, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian said,” Our proposal expanded the definition to ensure that ( it ) will be incorporated into the law regardless of who issued the license.”
” There’s a chance that these ( POGOs ) might go underground, but I think law enforcement has been very cautious about ensuring that these operations are seized before they spread further,” said Joseph Velasco, associate professor in the De La Salle University in the Philippines ‘ Department of Political Science and Development Studies.  ,