ONLINE gaming firm Philweb Corp. on Wednesday said it is reviving its old proposal of holding lottery through text messages.
It is a move designed to have a new business outside of its electronic games with state-owned Philippine Gaming and Amusement Corp. (Pagcor).
Dennis Valdes, the company’s president, said its proposal has been submitted with the state-owned firm five years ago, but it was never acted upon.
“This project proposal, which has nothing to do whatsoever with ‘online gaming,’ is called ‘Pagcor Text Bonanza,’” Valdes said.
Its plan resembles the current lottery being operated by the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), another government-owned firm, but the bettor will just text his chosen number using Smart Communications Inc.’s mobile number.
Valdes said Smart was involved since previously, the PLDT Inc. group held 27 percent of Philweb before the telco giant decided to divest its stake. Text revenue sharing back then was at 70 percent Philweb and 30 percent Smart.
“Despite the fact that PLDT has now divested its ownership in Philweb, it had agreed to continue with this sharing formula,” Valdes added.
He said PhilWeb is also open for Globe Telecom Inc., the country’s second-largest mobile-phone operator, to come in, but it had to agree to the 70-30 text revenue-sharing agreement.
The existing Lotto operates via sale of thermal- paper printed tickets in 4,000 outlets nationwide. It earns P30 billion for PCSO a year, Valdes said.
Philweb said Pagcor’s version of the lottery could easily hit earnings of between P50 billion and P100 billion a year, based on an ownership of 100 million mobile-phone subscribers, sending about 1.5 billion texts a day.
Valdes said they already secured an opinion from the Department of Justice that Pagcor can engage in this type of lottery done through text.
“I might point out that lotteries, sweepstakes have been conducted in the Philippines since the 1930s and no one considers it gambling,” he said.