Philweb seeking to revive text lottery proposal

Thursday 25th of August 2016

Philweb is reportedly seeking to revive a text / SMS lottery proposal after several failed attempts to renew the firm’s online gaming services, local media reports.

According to the Manila Bulletin, in a letter to Pagcor Board of Governors, PhilWeb president Dennis Valdes said he is trying to “exhaust all effort in trying to maintain the continued existence of PhilWeb” and is not proposing a new business plan.

“We submitted this project to PAGCOR some five years ago, but for unknown reasons, it was never acted upon. This project proposal, which has nothing to do whatsoever with ‘on-line gaming’ is called ‘PAGCOR Text Bonanza,’” said Valdes.

The lottery is based on a proprietary software, in which a chosen lottery number is texted to Philweb/ Pagcor services via a mobile phone. The bettor will then receive a confirmatory message which he saves in his mobile phone as his ticket.

“When we submitted this proposal some years back, PLDT/Smart owned 27 percent of PhilWeb, and therefore had agreed to a 70 percent PhilWeb and 30 percent Smart sharing of the text revenue (in contrast to the normal sharing of 70 percent for Smart and 30 percent for the service provider),” said Valdes, adding that Globe (another telecom provider) could also included in a similar deal.

“With over 100 million cell phones and 1.5 billion texts per day, it is not difficult to see the advantage of PAGCOR Text Bonanza over PCSO’s Lotto system,” he explained, adding that PAGCOR Text Bonanza could supplement government income “many times over.”

“There is an existing Department of Justice opinion confirming that nothing prevents PAGCOR from engaging in PAGCOR Text Bonanza which is nothing more than a sophisticated technology lottery, clearly allowed in the PAGCOR charter,” he added.

Lottery Interactive Gaming Phone Text SMS