PAGCOR Sets 1 January 2027 Start for Smart Tables at Manila's Four Integrated Resorts

A week after reports that a smart-table mandate would not come before the second half of 2027, PAGCOR's chairman has named a start date and the four Entertainment City resorts it covers. The requirement is to begin converting, not to finish, and no circular, cost estimate or technical standard has been published.

• PAGCOR chairman and chief executive Alejandro Tengco told Inside Asian Gaming (IAG) at G2E in Las Vegas that "effective 1 January 2027, all integrated resorts must start, at the very least, the conversion of their tables to smart tables"
• The deadline applies for now to the four Entertainment City resorts in Manila: City of Dreams Manila, Okada Manila, Newport World Resorts and Solaire Resort Entertainment City
• Tengco said "a majority" have already begun and are "compliant in advance"; IAG understands the mandate will cover baccarat first, with integrated resorts in Clark and Cebu and other casinos to follow later
• The timetable is earlier than IAG reported on 23 September, when its sources said a mandate was unlikely before the second half of 2027
• PAGCOR has published no circular, and neither the cost to operators nor the technical standard has been disclosed; the regulator is also fitting smart tables at its own Casino Filipino in Angeles City

A Start Date, and a Narrower First Phase

The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) will require the integrated resorts in Manila's Entertainment City to begin converting their gaming tables to smart tables by 1 January 2027, its chairman and chief executive, Alejandro Tengco, told IAG in an interview at the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) in Las Vegas, published on 30 September. "Effective 1 January 2027, all integrated resorts must start, at the very least, the conversion of their tables to smart tables," Tengco said. "Every integrated resort licensee in the Philippines should start the process of conversion."

For now, according to IAG, the date applies only to the four Entertainment City properties: City of Dreams Manila, Okada Manila, Newport World Resorts and Solaire Resort Entertainment City. Integrated resorts elsewhere, such as those in Clark and Cebu, are expected to be brought in later, followed by other casinos across the country. IAG said it understands the mandate will cover baccarat only at first, with other games added in future.

Tengco said "a majority" of the resorts had already begun the process, "so they're already compliant. They're now compliant in advance, and I believe by early 2027, they will be using smart tables." He described the 2027 date as falling "under the new guidelines of PAGCOR". We found no published guidelines, circular or press release on PAGCOR's website, and IAG's account does not say whether guidelines have been issued to licensees.

What Is Already on the Floor

Adoption in the Philippines is limited. According to IAG, the two Solaire properties, in Entertainment City and Quezon City, use a hybrid system from Angel, the Japanese table-games supplier, and Newport World Resorts recently installed the smart-table system of Walker Digital Table Systems. Smart tables typically use chips with embedded RFID tags and sensors in the table to record each wager and payout automatically. PAGCOR is also preparing an area for smart tables and new electronic gaming machines at its own Casino Filipino branch in Angeles City, which Tengco said has been newly renovated, and which IAG describes as among the largest and most profitable of PAGCOR's casinos.

What is new since IAG's first report on 23 September is the date, the named properties and the scope. That report said, citing sources, that a mandate originally planned for 2026 was unlikely to be issued before the second half of 2027, and that PAGCOR was reluctant to require heavy investment while casino revenue was under pressure. Tengco's version keeps the phasing, integrated resorts first and baccarat first, but brings the start forward and defines it as the beginning of conversion rather than a finished installation. No completion deadline has been given.

No Figures on Cost

Neither PAGCOR nor the operators have disclosed what the conversion will cost. Bloomberry Resorts, the listed owner of the Solaire properties, made no mention of smart tables in its second-quarter results release, which reported a first-half net loss of PHP470.3 million (approximately $7.5 million) and continued weakness in VIP and premium mass play. The resorts have not, as far as we could find, made any stock exchange disclosure about the requirement.

The Deadline Asks for Little, Which Is Why It Can Be Early

A requirement to "start" converting tables by 1 January is one most of the four resorts can say they already meet, and Tengco said as much. That is the likely reason the date could move forward from the second half of 2027: it commits PAGCOR to a policy without forcing the capital spending that its sources said it wanted to avoid while revenue is weak. The substance will be in what the guidelines require once published, whether conversion means a few baccarat tables or the whole pit, and by when. Until PAGCOR sets a completion date, a technical standard and the data it expects to receive, the mandate is a direction of travel rather than a rule an operator can be held to.

For the Regulator, Baccarat Is the Right Place to Start

Baccarat is the dominant table game in Asian casinos, particularly in VIP and premium mass play, and it is where cash-heavy, high-value play is hardest to supervise with dealers, inspectors and cameras alone. A table that records every bet gives the regulator an independent stream of data on drop, play and payout, which supports both the anti-money laundering checks casinos face as covered persons under Philippine law and the integrity of the revenue on which PAGCOR levies its fees. The same authorities have spent this year tightening control of money moving through gambling, and Tengco has called for a new online gaming law by 2028. Macau's concessionaires, which adopted smart tables after a 2024 government recommendation, have since used the data for loyalty schemes and side bets, a commercial upside that makes the cost easier for the largest resorts to justify.

PAGCOR Is Still Setting Rules for Casinos It Runs

Fitting smart tables at Casino Filipino Angeles lets PAGCOR show the technology in its own house, but it also illustrates the conflict that its planned separation of regulator and operator roles is meant to remove. Until that split, which PAGCOR expects to be endorsed by the Office of the President, the regulator is imposing a cost on private licensees while running competing casinos of its own. Leaving its own branches and the smaller casinos to a later phase is defensible on cost grounds, but it will be watched by the integrated resorts that go first.

PAGCOR now has a date, but not yet a rule. The guidelines, when they are published, will show whether 1 January 2027 is the start of a floor-wide change or a box most resorts have already ticked.