'Bingo domino OK not yet final'

The buck still stops with President Estrada, who will have the final say on whether to allow the operation of the controversial bingo domino in the country.

Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. chairwoman Alice Reyes informed the President yesterday that there is no final agreement yet between Pagcor and Best World (BW) Gaming and Entertainment Corp. on the bingo domino franchise.

This developed as Assistant Minority Leader Raul Gonzalez (NP, Iloilo City) maintained that the new numbers game is illegal, adding it is just the banned jueteng wearing a different collar.

Reyes made the report during a press conference at Malacañang, following the launching of the coffee table book "The Millennium President," the printing of which was financed by Pagcor.

She clarified that the state gaming firm has so far approved only the concept of the bingo domino, and that the guidelines have yet to be drawn up.

She argued that bingo domino could not be likened to jueteng as some lawmakers claimed.

"What was approved was actually a form of betting in two numbers and anyone who bets will have to choose the two numbers from 1 to 75, which is different from jueteng which I think has a choice from 37 numbers only," Reyes pointed out.

She also said unlike jueteng where bet collectors ("bookies") do the round of private homes, offices and business establishments, bettors in bingo domino have to go to terminals to buy their tickets.

Gonzales insisted, however, that bingo domino is actually jueteng which an old decree had declared unlawful.

"Bingo domino is jueteng with a different name," he said.

Pagcor has admitted that it has allowed BW Gaming and Entertainment, a subsidiary of controversial BW Resources Corp., to go into bingo domino.

Under what Pagcor describes as a bingo variation, a player bets on any two-number combination from 1 to 75. The first and last numbers drawn in the on-line bingo comprise the winning combination.

A bettor who selects the winning numbers in the proper order wins the jackpot, while those who get them in reverse win consolation prices.

Rep. Federico Sandoval II (Lakas, Taguig-Pateros), who exposed the BW deal over the weekend, noted that bingo domino is no different from jueteng as both involve a two-number combination.

Also, a jueteng operator is doing an illegal activity while in bingo domino, it is the government itself that is the operator and lets a private corporation do the job for it, he added.

Sandoval reminded Reyes of the commitment she gave the House committee on games and amusement that her agency won't go into jueteng.

Reyes had told the committee in a hearing conducted at a Quezon City hotel that jueteng is an illegal game of chance and therefore Pagcor won't go into it.

Congressmen had invited the Pagcor head then to shed light on the state gaming firm's decision to revive jai-alai.

She said her agency is allowed under its charter to go into any game of chance that is legal.

In a related development, Isabela Rep. Heherson Alvarez, Lakas secretary-general, expressed fears yesterday of a possible whitewash of the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) investigation into alleged stock manipulation by BW Resources Corp.

Alvarez said there is a growing suspicion in the stock market that PSE officials "would be stampeded into a judgment that will exonerate the guilty parties."

He said the PSE should "resist outside pressure and let the ax fall where it may to safeguard the investing public from fraud."

"We are all in this together, in the effort to rebuild confidence in our stock market, to truly modernize the PSE as well as assure the implementation of the spirit of the law pertaining to the self-regulatory functions of the SEC," he added.