The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) is targeting a December launch for a mobile app that will let players check whether an online gambling platform holds a Philippine licence, as the regulator steps up its campaign against illegal operators.

The PAGCOR board approved the development and implementation of the app on 8 October, according to reports in The Manila Times and BusinessWorld. The project was first flagged in August.

PAGCOR chairman and chief executive Alejandro Tengco said the app would help the public distinguish licensed platforms from unauthorised operators and avoid illegal gambling sites.

Built at no cost to the regulator

The app is set to be developed by DBP Data Center Inc. (DCI), a subsidiary of the state-owned Development Bank of the Philippines. Under the proposed five-year arrangement, DCI would develop, host, operate and maintain the platform, including technical support, at no cost to PAGCOR. The partnership can be renewed by mutual written agreement.

Before full implementation, DCI must present a proof of concept for a minimum viable product. A six-month technical assessment will review the app’s proposed features, system architecture, security controls and overall feasibility, and PAGCOR can terminate the arrangement if deficiencies are not corrected within a reasonable period. The six-month timeline suggests that any December release will be an initial version, with the full rollout to follow.

The arrangement must also comply with the Philippines’ Data Privacy Act of 2012 and related cybersecurity and information security rules, with data-sharing provisions to be set out in the main agreement or a separate one.

Illegal market pressure

The app is one part of a broader enforcement push. PAGCOR is working with the Department of Information and Communications Technology, the National Telecommunications Commission and the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordination Center to block and pursue unlicensed online gambling operators.

Tengco has previously said that illegal gambling accounts for roughly half of the Philippine gaming market, a share that undermines both state revenue and the licensed operators that pay fees and taxes to PAGCOR.

The move follows a turbulent period for the Philippine online sector. The government banned Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs) from the end of 2024, and domestic online gambling has since faced growing political scrutiny, with lawmakers proposing tighter controls on e-wallet payments and advertising.

PAGCOR is also unusual among gambling authorities in that it both regulates the market and operates casinos itself under the Casino Filipino brand. Tengco has said the corporation intends to divest its operating business so that it can concentrate on regulation. A consumer-facing licence check fits that shift, giving the regulator a direct channel to players at a time when unlicensed sites are increasingly marketed through social media and messaging apps.

Why it matters

Verification tools of this kind put licence status directly in front of consumers, rather than relying on them to check a regulator’s website. For licensed operators, that offers a potential competitive advantage over the grey market, provided the app is widely adopted and kept current. For unlicensed sites that rely on mimicking legitimate brands, it adds another obstacle to acquiring Philippine players.

New Jersey’s online casino market produced $274.8m in win in September 2026, up 13.0% from $243.1m a year earlier, according to figures released by the state’s Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) on 19 October.

The result was strong enough to lift total gaming revenue across casinos, racetracks and their online partners by 2.8% to $579.6m, despite a sharp fall in sports wagering revenue and a slight decline at the Atlantic City casino floors. Trade press reports described the online total as the third-highest monthly figure in the state’s history.

Online carries the month

Internet gaming win has now reached $2.40bn for the first nine months of the year, up 13.2% on the $2.12bn reported for the same period of 2025. Online casino now accounts for close to 45% of all gaming revenue in the state on a year-to-date basis.

Casino win at the nine Atlantic City casino hotels fell 1.3% to $227.8m in September, from $230.7m a year earlier. Year to date, land-based casino win stands at $2.24bn, up 1.4%.

Sports betting slips again

Sports wagering gross revenue dropped 14.3% to $77.0m in September, compared with $89.8m in the same month last year. Sports betting revenue for the year to date is $748.4m, 6.3% below the $798.5m recorded over the first nine months of 2025.

The DGE release does not break down handle or hold, but September revenue in US sportsbooks is heavily influenced by the start of the NFL season, when results can swing operator margins sharply from one year to the next. Other states reporting early September figures have also shown flat handle, while prediction market exchanges have continued to report rising volumes on sports event contracts.

Across all verticals, New Jersey collected $82.7m in gross revenue taxes for September and $756.8m for the year to date. Total gaming revenue for the first nine months stands at $5.39bn, up 5.1% from $5.13bn.

Those tax receipts reflect the higher rates New Jersey introduced in 2025, when the state lifted the tax on online casino and online sports betting revenue to 19.75%. Operators warned at the time that higher taxes would squeeze promotional budgets, but online casino win has continued to grow at a double-digit pace through 2026, suggesting demand has held up even as bonus spending has been reined in across the market.

The growth is being driven largely by online slots, which account for the bulk of internet gaming win, while live dealer and table games make up a smaller but steady share.

What comes next

The figures reinforce the pattern that has defined New Jersey’s market for several years: steady double-digit growth in online casino alongside a mature, more volatile sports betting segment and a broadly flat land-based business. For operators, that makes the state’s online casino market one of the most important profit pools in US gaming, at a time when only a handful of states permit the product and legislative efforts to expand iGaming elsewhere have moved slowly.

Operator-level results for September are published by the DGE in its monthly internet gross revenue reports. The full September release is available from the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General.

Catena Media expects third-quarter revenue to fall 29% to EUR 8.3m and will book a non-cash impairment of EUR 30-35m on intangible assets, the gambling affiliate said in a preliminary trading statement, blaming a rapid shift in how people search for brands online.

The Stockholm-listed group said revenue for the quarter compared with EUR 11.6m a year earlier. Adjusted EBITDA fell to EUR 0.7m from EUR 2.9m, and that figure was flattered by the reversal of EUR 0.7m in accruals made earlier in the year for the 2026 employee bonus programme. Without the reversal, the group would have broken even at the adjusted EBITDA level.

Revenue for the first nine months was EUR 30.1m against EUR 31.0m a year earlier, with adjusted EBITDA of EUR 4.6m (EUR 5.2m). The figures are preliminary and unaudited.

Growth target abandoned

Catena Media said it no longer expects to reach its target of double-digit organic growth in group revenue and adjusted EBITDA in 2026. The impairment, to be recognised in the third quarter under IAS 36, reflects lower expected earnings from the group’s website assets.

The company pointed to three pressures. Generative search continued to change how users discover brands, cutting new traffic across the affiliate industry. Its traditional search rankings declined, which it attributed both to AI-assisted personalised search and to search engines elevating “lower-relevancy content”. Some operators also cut marketing budgets during the usual summer slowdown.

The business model amplified the hit. More than 90% of Catena Media’s new customers are acquired under cost-per-acquisition deals, the group said in its statement, leaving it with little recurring revenue share income to cushion a fall in referrals.

“This was a weak quarter and our results reflect that,” chief executive Manuel Stan said. “The search landscape is undergoing a rapid and fundamental shift, and as a predominantly CPA-based business our results reflect the effects of these changes immediately and in full.”

TraffiqX and prediction markets

Stan said the results reinforced the strategy set out in the second quarter, which is to reduce dependence on search. That includes diversifying revenue through the group’s TraffiqX project, a new platform it plans to launch in the first quarter of 2027, and moving into new verticals such as prediction markets. The group is also investing in customer loyalty programmes to strengthen its brands.

The prediction markets push follows a wider rush among US-facing affiliates to promote Kalshi, Polymarket and the new prediction products from sportsbooks, which are available in states where conventional sports betting is not legal. Affiliate deals in that space have tended to pay CPA, which would not by itself solve the recurring-revenue problem Catena Media identified.

An industry-wide squeeze

Catena Media’s warning is the starkest yet of a pressure felt across listed gambling affiliates. Fellow listed affiliate Gentoo Media cut its 2026 guidance again earlier this month, although it blamed Brazil’s betting ban rather than search. AI overviews and chatbot answers increasingly satisfy queries such as “best online casino” without a click, while search engines’ treatment of affiliate content has been volatile through a series of core updates. Larger peers have responded by buying media brands, shifting to paid media and expanding into sports content to reduce reliance on organic search.

The group, headquartered in Malta and employing more than 150 people, has already gone through a restructuring that included a new operating model and cost cuts earlier this year. It will publish its full third-quarter report on 10 November, followed by a webcast.