Bodog Responds to Reports of Raids on Asian Office
Last Thursday, Bodog Asia offices in the Philippines were raided, and reports surfaced that several employees were sequestered in a boardroom for nearly eight hours as police collected names and addresses. The motivation behind the raids weren’t immediately known, but reports indicated it was either politically motivated or that police were investigating whether or not Bodog was offering illegal gambling in the Philippines.
According to Bodog, it appears the latter suspicion was the primary motivation.
“Bodog Asia has been accused of running a numbers game to residents of the Philippines,” the company said in a statement. “Part of the licence agreement is not to offer services to residents of the Philippines and, therefore, Bodog do not.
“The local police are, however, obliged to follow up the accusation and we are, of course, fully cooperating with them to quickly clear up the situation. Bodog sees Manila as the centre of the massive Asian-facing online gaming industry and their near 1,000 employees in the city have helped them build the brand in the region.
“Bodog are confident this issue will be resolved quickly with minimum disruption to customers and contrary to media reports all staff have been retained.”
On the same day as the raid, three more charges were laid against Jan Robert Gustafsson, Sherwin Quiambao, Sylvia De Guzman, and Arleen Aldaba in an ongoing embezzlement case that is speculated to involve millions of dollars. More charges are expected in that case.
PokerNews will continue to update on this story.
Photo courtesy of Calvin-Ayre.
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