POGO lessons for Asian gaming industry after the Philippines ban
One year after the Philippines imposed a nationwide ban on POGO operations in 2024, discussion at multiple panels during SiGMA Asia 2026 shifted away from whether the sector should have been shut down and towards what the industry can learn from its rise and fall.
Panelists approached the issue from different perspectives, including regulation, investment and market positioning. Despite these differences, they reached a common conclusion: Asia’s gaming industry is redefining how it competes.
Regulatory certainty, not market size, drives competitiveness
During the panel After POGOs: Rebuilding the Philippine Gaming Equation, panelists agreed that investment decisions are shaped less by market size than by the predictability of a jurisdiction’s regulatory framework.
Peter Williams, Managing Director for Asia Pacific at Continent 8 Technologies, said:
“capital follows certainty and predictability.”
For investors, market size remains important, but long-term confidence depends on regulatory stability, legal continuity and the ability to anticipate the operating environment over the next five or even ten years. This helps explain why attention quickly shifted after the POGO ban from whether the market would contract to whether the Philippines could establish a new regulatory framework.
This observation also aligns with the themes explored in Three trends reshaping Asia’s gaming industry, which argued that Asian markets are moving away from prioritising scale and towards building trust. Trust is increasingly becoming a key competitive advantage across the region.
Removing illegal operators does not mean abandoning the industry
Another recurring theme was that the challenges associated with POGO should not be taken to represent the entire gaming industry. Peter Williams and Harmen Brenninkmeijer both argued that the issues exposed by POGO reflected weaknesses in governance, enforcement and interagency coordination rather than problems inherent to online gaming itself. In their view, regulators should remove non-compliant operators rather than dismantle legitimate parts of the industry.
Several panelists therefore argued that regulatory efforts should focus on establishing clear rules, improving coordination between government agencies and allowing compliant businesses to operate within a transparent and stable framework, rather than relying on one-off policy interventions.
Retaining talent matters more than retaining office space
The closure of POGO operations led to visible changes, including weaker property transactions and rising office vacancy rates. However, several panelists suggested that the movement of skilled professionals deserves greater attention.
Peter Williams noted that the POGO era developed a large pool of professionals with expertise in products, technology and operations. Without new opportunities within the industry, many of these workers are likely to relocate to other markets.
Casino Plus Chief Executive Officer Evan Spytma said that some of this talent has gradually moved into PIGO, the Philippines’ locally licensed gaming operators. However, he argued that the country missed a broader opportunity to retain the knowledge and expertise brought in by international professionals and embed those skills within the local industry.
The discussion highlighted another shift in Asia’s gaming market. Competition is no longer focused solely on attracting more players, but also on building and retaining industry expertise to support better products and services.
Investors are redefining what makes a gaming company investable
The end of the POGO era has also influenced how investors assess gaming businesses. As discussed in Five questions investors ask before backing gaming startups, investors are looking beyond product innovation and placing greater emphasis on sustainable business models, regulatory compliance and long-term operating strategies.
The same principle applies at the market level. For international investors, a mature gaming jurisdiction is defined not simply by the size of its player base, but by stable regulation, predictable policy and a business environment that supports sustainable growth.
Asia’s gaming market enters a new competitive phase
The end of the POGO era marks the close of a period of rapid expansion in Asia’s gaming industry and the beginning of a new phase centred on trust, compliance and long-term value. Discussions throughout SiGMA Asia 2026 showed that industry priorities are gradually shifting from rapid expansion towards building markets that can attract sustained long-term investment.
The Philippines continues to benefit from an English-speaking workforce, extensive gaming expertise and a favourable geographic location. However, its future competitiveness will depend less on market size and more on its ability to establish a transparent, stable and predictable regulatory framework.
In retrospect, the most important lesson from the POGO era may not be how to close an industry, but how to build a market in which legitimate operators, investors and regulators are all willing to commit for the long term.
Not every journey changes your business, but this one will. From 30 Nov to 02 Dec 2026, SiGMA South Asia lands in Colombo, bringing together 3,500+ delegates and 150 exhibitors. The room is waiting.
