Gaming body needs re-calibration to attune inroads of Online betting’

October 7, 2019 Metro BLISTT

BAGUIO CITY (September 29, 2019) — Government’s games and amusements regulatory body GAB (Games and Amusements Board) is needing re-calibration to attune to the changing world of professional sports, Abra lawmaker Joseph Bernos said as he is seeking to strengthen regulation of professional sports, including cockfighting.
Bernos in filing House Bill No. 3867, seeks to fortify GAB’s capabilities to regulate professional sports, including cockfighting. Significant developments has been challenging GAB and its powers, Rep. Bernos said, prompting him to seek for the updating of its functions to attune to the times with the inroads of electronic and on-line betting in the country.
”Increasing usage of off-site, online betting technologies circumvents the traditional methods of betting we know,” Bernos, a cockfighting aficionado himself, explained.
”Without the necessary skills and powers to monitor the compliance of these technologies to our national laws, even the most passive bettor will be enticed to place huge sums of money on the games because of easily accessible facilities,” he warned.
Specifically for cockfighting, Rep. Bernos wants the GAB to be the lead agency in charge of promulgating a uniform set of rules and regulations to govern actual cockfighting; regulating and supervising live streaming and other forms of transmission from cockpits; collecting 3% of gross bets made through off-site betting; and prescribing policy guidelines on the issuance of permits for the import of gamecocks or ‘panabong na manok’.
“Revenues drawn from these activities — from licensing of the technologies to the bets made out of these games — shall be a stable source of income to fund social service programs for the people,” the Abra lawmaker pointed out.
House Bill 3867 further aims to empower GAB by giving it quasi-judicial powers to resolve matters pertaining to conflicts arising out of matches of professional sports, and to issue professional sports licenses for all professional athletes, officials, and employees connected to these activities.
GAB, created by the virtue of Executive Order No. 392 in 1951, was tasked to “regulate and supervise professional sports and allied activities to combat and prevent the existence and proliferation of illegal bookie joints and other forms of organized illegal gambling connected with all play-for-pay sports and amusement games.”
 
Ace Alegre/ABN