There are a handful of folks in this nation of sporting pundits, casino high-rollers and gaming aficionados who see PAGCOR as an organization to be removed. Most of the opponents are in theocratic circles.  The church’s bishops for example oppose an organized gambling body.  For administrative purposes the government is taking full charge of the gaming administration through PAGCOR.

Community development initiatives thru PAGCOR

PAGCOR is also able to generate lots of money for the development of the Filipino industry and related sectors. With a large population – a large minority of them indigent – there is a lot of good work that tax revenue from gambling can do for socio-economic upliftment initiatives. Much of the money comes from the following sectors: sports betting, casino gaming revenue and sports betting exchanges.

There are many top-class online casinos operating for the benefit of Filipino clients and customers. These include the following: Lucky Nugget, Gaming Club, River Belle, Party Casino, King Neptunes and Royal Vegas. These are some of the most popular casinos and they offer competitive bonuses and exciting promotional offers.

Sportsbetting is where it’s at

But it’s not the online casinos where all the attention is being focused with Philippines gaming, it’s with sportsbooks. Punters are the bread and butter of the Philippines gaming industry. To this end there are a myriad of bets going on with sportsbooks especially with the FIFA 2010 World Cup. Bwin is the leading sportsbook among fans of this island nation as is Bet365.

Customers from the Philippines signing up for Bet365 are eligible for a $200 matching bonus. In addition there is live in-play betting which brings you the latest odds in real time. But better yet – because they can’t be there at the 2010 FIFA World Cup – they still get to see the action live and in play with live streaming television.

Orient Capital Ventures Inc (OCVI) which is based in Manila, recently got a sportsbook license from PAGCOR which we are all familiar with as the main regulatory body for the gaming industry in the Philippines.  OCVI chose iBroker from the Irish-based Global Betting Exchange (GBE) to be its sportsbook software. OMVI operates as a subsidiary of AsianLogic Limited which is widely regarded as one of the leading online and land based gaming operators in the Asia Pacific region.

The retail portion of the whole operation which will also include SMS and telephone betting services is currently in the process of being introduced to OCVI’s outlets and its local operating partners under the ‘MegaSportsWorld’ brand. MegaSportsWorld is simply the trade name of OCVI and is also a fully licensed sports book registered in the Philippines

The Pacquiao-Cotto fight last weekend was considered to be a huge test for the new sportsbook because of the huge number of one-sided bets wagered but apparently the system managed the load smoothly.

Don’t know about you, but I’m going to check them out and see what they have to offer. The more operators there are the better I reckon for us as customers. Competition encourages better bonuses and customer service.

Depending on where you are from in the world of course, the most popular sports on which to wager a bet are football, baseball, hockey, snooker, basketball, horse racing, cricket and rugby.  And each sport has its different betting system. The first thing you need to do is find a reputable online ’sportsbook’ (as they are called in the States), a ‘bookmaker’ (as the Brits refer to them) or simply a ‘book’. These are all the same thing – just given different labels by different nationalities. Whatever you choose to call it, it’s basically the establishment that takes the bet. The individual who takes the bets is called a ‘bookie’ whilst the ‘oddsmaker’ is the person who sets the betting odds (rather self-explanatory really!). And the object of sport betting is simply to beat the oddsmaker to win some money.

Here’s a rundown of the more common types of bets you can make.

Straight Bet – The simplest and most common bet where you bet on a winner at the given odds.

Over/under Bet – You place a wager that the combined number of points scored in a match by both teams will be over or under the total set by the oddsmaker.

Parlay – This is a combination bet. Instead of making 4 separate bets on 4 different games, you place a single parlay bet in the hope that you can predict the outcome of all 4 games. If you are wrong about the outcome of any one of the games, you lose the lot. Where there is a tie, match postponement or cancellation, your parlay is automatically reduced by one selection.

Teaser Bet – This bet is like a parlay but with the option of adding or subtracting points from one or more of the bets. As with a parlay, all your selections need to be correct to win the bet.

Future Bet – At the start of each season, sportsbooks set odds for teams to win a particular championship / league. As the season progresses, the odds change and usually get shorter as the final game approaches. But if you’re lucky enough to bet on the winning team, you get paid at the original odds when you placed the bet.