Authority Shift -- Philippine Finance Secretary Juanita Amatong announced Tuesday that the government is drafting an executive order that would place the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (Pagcor) under the Department of Finance by 2005. The Catholic Church's leading anti-gambling advocate in the Philippines, Pangasinan Archbishop Oscar Cruz, has praised the plan, claiming that the Department of Finance should be able to clean up the controversial policies and revenue allocations that the company has made in the past. "This is good because the office of the president does not have enough time to oversee it," Cruz said. "It is better in a way because the office of the president is loaded with a lot of agenda."
Olympic Betting in NZ -- New Zealand's TAB has gained permission from the country's basketball authorities to take bets on Olympic basketball. The New Zealand Olympic Committee objects but has no authority to prevent TAB, which has also obtained permission to offer wagering on soccer, from going through with it. TAB speculates that it could have six sports under its belt by the start of the Olympic Games next month, with tennis, the triathlon, cycling and boxing the next potential additions. TAB will return 1 percent of its betting turnover and 5 percent of its profits from basketball wagers to the sport.
Rejection? -- The Guardian reports that U.K. Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell will probably reject the Parliament Joint Scrutiny Committee's suggestions, published yesterday, that existing casino companies be permitted to operate a limited number of Las Vegas-style unlimited payout slot machines. The government's proposed regulatory model would give new casino and leisure complexes exclusive rights to operate such machines. The committee's chairman, John Greenway, would like to protect England's existing operators, such as Rank, Stanley Leisure and Gala, from the flood of foreign investors by allowing them to operate the machines in limited numbers in their own casinos. "The existing industry risks being seriously and, in our view, unfairly disadvantaged by the government's proposals," Greenway said. But according to the Guardian's sources in the Culture Department, Jowell has already resolved to ban the machines in all but a few destination sites.