Tuesday, September 23, 2008 Philweb to set up 130 new cafes By Nancy R. Cudis Sun.Star Staff Reporter
AFTER helping 97 locators establish Pagcor e-Games cafés across the country, PhilWeb Corp. is targeting a total of 130 cafes in the next six to eight months.
Since December 2007, 21 e-Games cafés were built, a development that PhilWeb considered as a manifestation of the demand for online gaming.
e-Games is the gaming portal for the Internet-based games of the Philippines Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor), the country’s regulatory agency for all games of chance.
PhilWeb, a listed Internet gaming company, is Pagcor’s lead technology enabler that assists the government agency in operating the cafés.
PhilWeb promoted e-Games café during the recent 9th Cebu Franchise Expo where PhilWeb senior manager for Internet casino station Mark Allan de Ungria noted that more and more people are betting on lottery and other games of chance to increase their financial resources amid the hard times.
With a typical café getting an average monthly bet volume of P41 million PhilWeb believes that a Pagcor e-Games café will be a good investment for entrepreneurs.
It has no franchise fee, the typical start-up capital is between P1.2 million and P1.5 million, monthly revenue is 28 percent of casino win and typical payback is 12 months.
A Pagcor e-Games station, an entertainment center similar to an Internet café but dedicated to playing games through a virtual casino, opens 24 hours daily and offers at least 120 games. About 39 percent of these games are slots, 20 percent are video poker games and 13 percent are table card games.
However, persons below 21 years old are not allowed to play so it could not cater to the younger market.
Winnings
To play, customers exchange their cash for betting pins. A station is required to have at least six gaming assistants to assist players. A customer can claim his winnings in cash after playing by presenting his betting pins to the outlet cashier.
In Cebu, there are two e-Games stations in Cebu City and one in Mandaue City.
Ungria said that one of the challenges involved in setting up an e-Games station is that the site must be 200 meters away from a school and place of worship and must be in a high-traffic area with “reasonable security.”
“Pagcor approves the sites after checking the income bracket of the people living in the area,” he said.
PhilWeb Corp. reported an unaudited net income of P149.6 million for the first half of 2008 or a 78 percent increase from P84.2 million it made during the same period last year. The company attributed the income largely to Pagcor e-Games café systems and to its investment in ISM Communications Corp.
“Growth in our Pagcor e-Games cafés has exceeded our targets. (We) are confident we can accelerate this rapid growth over the next quarters. Online gaming is still very much a sunrise industry in the Philippines, and we have proven to be in the best position to benefit from the explosion of interest in the medium,” said PhilWeb president Dennis Valdes in a statement.
