Useful Philippines Land Based Casino Information

Hello folks!

I thought I would bestow some of my rather extensive information on the Philippines and it's land-based casinos. 

For some brief background, I owned a business there for 10 years. I traveled back and forth from Thailand to the Philippines during that time every 3 to 4 weeks. 

The Philippines is a beautiful country with many areas to explore and dotted throughout this archipelago of 7,000+ islands are some rather nice casino resorts. They are all run by PACGOR (Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation) which is interestingly enough under the office of the President of the Philippines. 

PACGOR is essentially a gaming monopoly and any casino in the Philippines MUST have a license acquired by them. To be perfectly honest, over the years PACGOR has had some dodgy dealings as corruption is commonplace in the Philippines. Be sure to keep this in mind if you decide to travel there and especially do any gambling.

The most important thing to remember when gambling in the Philippines is being sure you have trusted transportation to and from your casino of choice. The Philippines has a huge poverty problem leading to a lot of criminal activity in and around casinos. Not to mention, some of the locations of the casinos are in rather bad areas so never walk to them at night, during the day you are fine. But even then I don't think it's worth taking any chance so it's best to spend a couple of US dollars on reputable taxis. Your hotel or the casino itself can help you with that.

I shall add some more information to this thread as time permits on specific casino locations such as Manila, Angeles City, and Cebu. There's also an interesting resort up on the far end of Northern Luzon between Vegan and Laoag mostly frequented by Taiwanese citizens. 

To be clear, I am not telling anybody to avoid gambling in the Philippines, but to be aware of the dynamics involved.

#philippines #gaming #casinos #gambling #asia

thank you for your useful insight, I believe LCBers will appreciate it 

Everyone is most welcome as my main concern is keeping everyone safe as the Philippines can be dangerous for unsuspecting travelers but mostly on the main island of Luzon (Manila, Angeles City, Clark, etc). The other provinces are much safer and in some ways, one might liken them to entirely different countries. 

In the future posts on this thread, I shall be more specific about the gaming aspects at the locations I've been, adding other useful unique information applying to their respective locales only. 

I hope everyone will find this useful for years to come and I shall write in a search engine friendly manner to get the maximum exposure for non-members to gain this insight as well.

The number 1 traveling rule with arriving in Manila International Airport is the following. DO NOT use the private airport taxis clearly marked (Manila Nino Aquino International Airport) as you will be approached by touts exiting the main terminal immediately. They are all associated with the airport. They charge crazy fares even to destinations in Manila. This has always been a problem in Manila so be sure to get a non-airport public taxi and negotiate with them. Those can easily be hailed by making an immediate right as soon as you exit the main terminal and walk past towards parking lot located on the other side of the street about 100 meters. You should see a sign and taxis queued up. They are reputable and quite helpful as well. It's a good idea to have correct change so it's best to exchange enough to get to your initial destination at the airport currency exchange. I say this because you are losing about 5% on the exchange with the rates given at the airport. DO NOT buy pesos at your country of origin, you will get destroyed in the exchange rate.

Using Grab these days or try contacting a transportation company prior to your arrival in Manila. Google can assist you here as there are many reputable ones. Trip Advisor will help in reviews if you are so inclined. 

Installment #1 - Resorts World Manila

I shall start here is this is one of the new total turnkey casino hotel and resort mega-complex which is partly owned by Robert DeNiro, the popular actor. This is located literally a stone's throw from the airport almost across the street in Pasay. If you booked a room here they shall indeed take care of your transportation along with pretty much everything else if you want.

Resorts World is truly a Western-style casino resort with all the latest games, both table and slot varieties in numerous amounts. They have bars, cinemas, live entertainment (Filipinos are very talented), restaurants, shopping and everything you would expect a resort to have. 

You will find their table games to be more Asian oriented but they do have Western/Las Vegas-style gaming like Blackjack, Texas Holdem, Baccarat and Craps. They have a very extensive selection of the latest slot machines probably more than most casinos with about 1,500 of them. 

I would highly recommend one reads the reviews on Trip Advisor and be thorough as some people are biased or post horrible reviews because they lost badly. I'm sure you folks know how to read through this. 

Resorts World Manila's website is extensive and may be found here - https://www.rwmanila.com/

#manila #resortsword #gaming #gambling #pasay #asiagaming #philippines #casinos