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As calls to ban online gambling grow louder, longtime liquor retailers are reminding policymakers of a hard-earned truth: prohibition doesn’t eliminate vice. It only pushes it out of sight, making it more dangerous, more predatory, and harder to control.
Ralph Lim Joseph, owner of Ralph’s Wines & Spirits, one of the country’s most enduring liquor store chains, draws a direct parallel from decades in the business. “We’ve seen this story before,” Joseph said. “During times when liquor was restricted, whether during elections or curfews, people didn’t stop drinking. They just went underground. Unregulated suppliers stepped in. Quality dropped. Safety vanished. And the government lost control.”
Established in 1975, Ralph’s has weathered changing tides in regulation, public sentiment, and policy. Yet one thing, Joseph says, has never changed: demand. “People will always look for comfort, escape, or entertainment, especially during hard times. That doesn’t go away because you banned something. It just shifts into the black market.”
Joseph warns that the same will happen if online gaming is outlawed. “The legal operators today are the ones you can monitor, license, and hold accountable. If you shut them down, you’re not killing gambling, you’re handing it over to fly-by-night operators and criminal syndicates with zero regard for consumers.”
For the veteran liquor merchant, the answer lies not in outright bans but in smarter regulation. “We’ve learned in the alcohol business that the most responsible way to manage vice is to regulate it, educate the public, and make safety non-negotiable,” Joseph said. “That’s how you protect people, not by pretending demand does not exist.”
The story of alcohol regulation in the Philippines, marked by cycles of moral panic, failed prohibitions, and eventual reform, offers a precedent for today’s online gaming debate. And according to those who’ve lived through it, we can’t afford to ignore the lessons of history.
