THE Cebu City Police Office will crack down on illegal small town lottery (STL) outlets in Cebu City and will intensify its “No usher zone” campaign beginning third week of June.
The ushers, also called bookies in the streets, are persons who go out in the villages to receive bet money for STLs. Some also leak number combinations for people to bet on.
“By next week, we will intensify our operations declaring Cebu City a ‘no usher zone.’ Definitely, all the ushering activities in the city will be stopped and the ushers will be disowned by those (legal) companies,” CCPO Chief Royina Garma said on Thursday, June 13.
This is to support the two firms allowed by the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) to operate gambling activities in the city.
These corporations, she said, are the Sinsilyo sa Cebu City Corp. and Globaltech Mobile Online Corp., which operates the Peryahan ng Bayan games.
Peryahan ng Bayan was allowed by the Court of Appeals to operate thru a status quo ante it issued on Jan. 20, 2019 while the PCSO and Globaltech undergo arbitration proceedings.
The PCSO wants Peryahan ng Bayan games terminated after Globaltech’s Deed of Authority (DOA) expired in March 2016.
Garma believes one of the reasons the police have difficulty eliminating illegal gambling activities in the city is that some ushers, while working with legal STLs, are also doing business with other groups or individuals who finance their activities.
She said some ushers of the STLs and gaming corporations do not remit all their daily collections to their respective STL agents, compromising the STL’s operations.
“All the betting (activities) should be conducted in booths identified by the Peryahan and STL Sinsilyo. Those booths not identified by these two legal corporations are considered illegal,” she said in Cebuano.
In an interview, Glen Rada, officer-in-charge of the PCSO Cebu branch, said the Peryahan ng Bayan of Globaltech Mobile Online Corp., is supposed to sell tickets through a point of sale device as stated in the DOA.
However, its outlets reportedly issue manually written tickets.
As of June, there are only four STLs that are authorized by PCSO to operate in Cebu.
These are the Sinsilyo sa Cebu City Corp., the First Golden Fortune Leisure Inc. in Mandaue City, the Lucky 7 Games and Amusement Corp. in Lapu Lapu City and the Saturn Gaming N’ Amusement Corp. (WBS)