TLDR The Philippine central bank closed more than 8,000 merchant accounts tied to unlicensed online casinos. Businesses like bakeries, salons, and small stores were used to process the illegal payments. Authorities flagged accounts taking thousands of small bets late at night and into early morning. PAGCOR is working with the central bank and building an app to help users find legal gambling sites. New draft rules will force payment platforms to screen merchants more closely before onboarding them.
Authorities in the Philippines have closed more than 8,000 merchant accounts after finding they were being used to funnel money to unregistered online casino operators.
The closures were confirmed by Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the country’s central bank, according to a Bloomberg report. The bank said the accounts were tied to businesses that appeared ordinary on the surface.
These included beauty salons, bakeries, and small neighborhood stores. Investigators found that many of them were actually processing bets for illegal gambling platforms.
Mamerto Tangonan, deputy governor of the central bank, said the goal is to protect consumers from fraud and money laundering. He said digital payments cannot grow if people keep losing money to scams.
Late-Night Transactions Raised Concerns
The pattern that caught investigators’ attention involved timing. Some merchant accounts were processing thousands of tiny payments, as low as PHP50, or about $0.80.
These transactions often happened after midnight and continued into the early morning. That is unusual for businesses like bakeries or salons, which are normally closed during those hours.
Further review found the payments were actually online casino bets. This pattern helped investigators identify which accounts were being misused.
Officials have not shared the total value of funds that moved through these accounts. They also have not named the specific businesses involved.
Still, the scale of the shutdown,