go through Luisa Maria Jacinta C. Jocson, Senior Reporter
Proposed Rules FloridaAccording to a senior lawyer, participation in payment services regulated by Bangkok by Sentral Ng Pilipinas (BSP) is unlikely to change the problematic behavior of gamblers.
Russell Stanley Q. Geronimo Law founder and attorney Russell Stanley Q. Geronimo said in a comment that certain agency compliance in the BSP circular “will be unlikely to change or curb harmful gambling behaviors of vulnerable users or change supplier conditions to change the potential to enable it.”
BSP recently released a draft notice to regulate the payment aspects of online gambling to prevent abuse of financial services.
The thriving gaming industry in the Philippines is now scrutinizing concerns about addiction and financial problems.
The Ministry of Finance (DOF) has proposed taxes on online gaming, as well as other possible measures to crimp public access to digital gambling platforms, such as imposing restrictions on cash.
According to the BSP’s proposed circular, these regulations could cover the operators of payment service providers (PSPs) engaged in these services as well as the operators of payment systems (OPSS), which are the aggregators of payment acquirers or online gambling operators.
“It is worth noting that only 10 out of ten of the substantive provisions in the draft circular directly address player-level trading restrictions,” Mr Geronimo said.
Other regulations focus on agency compliance, onboarding procedures and reporting obligations, he said.
“The largest payment providers have no doubt that the financial and legal resources to meet these requirements. Similarly, the most established gambling operators have maintained the compliance department and the legal team that can adapt to the proposed framework of the draft circular.”
The central bank will require the PSP to create a separate online gambling trading account (OGTA) for qualified account holders.
According to the draft rules, transferring funds to OGTA will be subject to daily restrictions, which should not exceed 20% of the average daily balance (ADB) of the eligible owner trading account. PSPs must reject incoming fund transfers.
Mr Geronimo said the 20% limit is a “weak and ineffective deterrent”.
“The most risky low-income users usually maintain a smaller balance (e.g., P500 to P1,000).” He said these users can still be gambling P100 to P200 a day, which is still the “most” of the daily minimum wage.
“For low-income users living in low-income users who are tight on their daily budgets, gambling P100 to P200 per day could mean skipping meals, delaying utility payments or shutting down shipping.”
“Based on this scale, it directly undermines the stability and financial resilience of the household. What may seem moderate from an absolute standpoint is economic instability to the poor.”
Instead of the 20% limit, Mr. Geronimo recommends introducing a tiered transaction limit with absolute upper limits related to user verification and financial capabilities.
“20% of the current ADB CAPs cannot distinguish users with very different financial situations,” he said.
He added: “Users should be divided into layers based on the depth of identity verification and the depth of income or proof of economic status. Each layer should have corresponding restrictions on OGTA funding.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Geronimo also pointed out that the provisions on the PSP set up a transaction window in which online gambling payment services can be provided.
According to the draft circular, this trading window should not exceed six hours per day. He said the measure “does little” in curbing gambling.
“Limiting gambling payments to a six-hour window per day does not reduce the total number or intensity of gambling; it just compresses it into a narrower time band,” he said.
“Users with compulsive behavior or high gambling simply adjust their activities to match allowed windows. Additionally, the rule does not prevent multiple PSPs or platforms from providing overlapping windows, effectively eliminating time-based restrictions.”
Instead of the six-hour window, Mr Geronimo said BSPs could choose to “control based on transaction frequency and funding speed to better capture compulsive or high-risk usage”.
He also pointed out that some definitions in the draft rules should be clearer and more uniform, such as the term “large usage.”
According to the proposed provision, “If the relevant PSP is defined, the online gambling payment service is heavily used, a 24-hour cooling period should be implemented.”
“This undermines the credibility of the provision and creates obvious conflicts of interest and moral hazard,” he said.
“PSPs, especially those that benefit from high transaction volumes, have no commercial incentives to define or strictly enforce heavy use. As a result, this mechanism may become purely formalistic or inconsistent applications.”
He added that “mass use” can be measured by cumulative OGTA top-ups over P2,000 or more than 10 gambling-related transactions.
“The lack of BSP prescription thresholds also invites regulatory arbitrage, and depending on the platform, the same behavior may vary,” he said.
Mr. Geronimo also recommended several other enhancements to the draft notice, such as modifying the disabling of loan options within the platform to make it clearer and enhance self-imposed restrictions and user-initiated safeguards.
“Several key protections, such as options for disabling OGTA, pop-up alerts and advertising restrictions, have been embedded as part of the policy document, rather than authorized for technical implementation throughout the industry,” he said.
“This approach lacks executability and has no real operational impact and reduces boilerplate compliance.”
The draft will open public comments until July 25.
