Philippine gambling: From cockpits to online bets

For as far as civilization has started in the Philippines, gambling has long been woven into the fabric of Philippine life.

- Todd Sales Lucero

From the cockpits of the Spanish colonial period to today's billion-peso casinos and online betting platforms, various groups have condemned gambling as a vice, celebrated as leisure, and tapped by the government as sources of much-needed revenue. Recently, the Senate has begun its investigation into online gambling that many Filipinos have been said to be addicted to.

Reports have been cited in the hearings of more recent cases of deaths or violence due to gambling. For instance, a Pampanga father was said to have accrued around P600,000 in e-sabong debts and committed suicide, per then-Sen. Panfilo Lacson's account in The Philippine STAR; another from Pampanga was reported in an Inquirer newspaper column as having committed suicide after heavy e-sabong indebtedness; the 34 missing sabungeros allegedly abducted between April 2021-January 2022; and more suicides of bettors over e-sabong losses and so much more.