PAGCOR Revenue Falls 26.64% in First Half of 2026

PAGCOR booked PHP43.32 billion of revenue in the first half of 2026, down 26.64% on the PHP59.05 billion it took a year earlier. Gaming operations at the Philippine regulator fell 27.11% to PHP38.92 billion, and net income dropped 85.29% to PHP1.58 billion.

That last figure is the one worth sitting with. An organisation that still pulled in more than PHP43 billion of revenue kept barely PHP1.58 billion of it, which tells you the cost base did not move anything like as fast as the income did.

The eGames Number Nobody Wanted

The damage is not spread evenly. Revenue from eGames, eBingo and bingo grantees came in at PHP18.60 billion, down 41.85% from PHP32 billion. Licensed casinos slipped 3.85%. The state-run Casino Filipino properties fell 8.67%.

So the bricks-and-mortar estate wobbled and the digital segment fell off a cliff. That ordering matters, because eGames was supposed to be the growth engine. After the Philippines shut down its offshore gaming operator industry at the end of 2024, domestic online play was the segment PAGCOR leaned on to replace the licence income it had just given up. Losing more than four in every ten pesos of it inside twelve months is not a soft quarter. It is the plan not working.

Net operating income tells the same story from another angle, down 35.05% to PHP31.75 billion.

What makes the eGames figure harder to wave away is that it is a licensing line, not an operating one. PAGCOR does not run those games. It licenses the grantees who do and takes a share, which means a 41.85% fall reflects the volume flowing through licensed platforms rather than PAGCOR’s own cost control or footfall. Either play has dropped by that much, or a large chunk of it has moved somewhere the regulator cannot see and cannot bill.

Tengco Points at the Middle East

Chairman and chief executive Alejandro H. Tengco attributed the weak first half to “geopolitical tensions in the Middle East” dampening consumer spending, and said market conditions had improved in the second quarter despite continuing “uncertainties” from fuel price increases.

Fuel is a reasonable thing to point at in a market where much of the casino visitation is domestic and price-sensitive, and where a diesel spike feeds straight into the cost of getting to a property. It is a harder explanation to stretch over a 41.85% fall in online play, though. People do not drive to an eGames session.

The Contributions Did Not Shrink

Here is the squeeze in one line. Revenue fell by more than a quarter, net income fell by six sevenths, and the money going out of the door barely flinched.

PAGCOR handed over PHP30.16 billion in what it calls nation-building contributions during the half. The national government took PHP18.49 billion of that. Franchise tax accounted for PHP1.94 billion and socio-civic projects PHP7.36 billion. The remittance to the Philippine Sports Commission actually rose 58.68% to PHP2.01 billion.

A regulator that doubles as a treasury line item has very little room to absorb a bad half. The obligations are fixed in law and the earnings are not, so the entire shortfall lands on the bottom line. That is how a 27% fall in gaming revenue turns into an 85% collapse in net income.

What This Sets Up

Two things follow. The first is pressure to widen the licensed online base, because a 41.85% decline in a regulated segment usually means play has moved rather than stopped, and in the Philippines it has plenty of unlicensed places to move to. The second is that the case for PAGCOR selling its own Casino Filipino properties gets easier to make every time the operating arm underperforms the licensing arm.

Tengco says the second quarter was better than the first. The full-year figures will show whether that was a recovery or just a slower decline.