The pandemic forced DigiPlus Interactive chairman Eusebio Tanco to place his chips on offering bingo online. Now with rivals circling, he’s upping his bet with a new superapp and overseas expansion.This story is part of Forbes’ coverage of Philippines’ Richest 2026. See the full list here.Back in January 2022, as the Philippines hit a record daily Covid-19 case count, Eusebio Tanco, chairman of gaming company DigiPlusInteractive, pushed his chips into place. The company, then called Leisure & Resorts World, had racked up over 2 billion pesos ($39 million at the time) in net losses following two years of lockdowns that had all but shuttered its 163 bingo halls and gaming cafes across the archipelago.“We needed to do something,” recalls Tanco, 76, sporting his trademark sneakers and blue jeans in an exclusive interview at his office in the Makati financial district. He launched BingoPlus, an interactive gaming platform built from scratch, to complement the idle bingo slot machines. “The pandemic accelerated our move to go online,” he says. The pivot drove the company’s recovery—DigiPlus posted a modest 600.7 million pesos ($9.8 million) in net income in 2022—and laid the foundation for a new way of doing business. Over the next three years, the company extended its online offerings in the Philippines to include sports betting and casino games like slots and live dealer games. Helped by the explosive adoption of mobile wallets during the pandemic, the total number of registered users rose exponentially, hitting 40 million last year.The DigiPlus headquarters at Bonifacio Global City, near the Makati financial district.Courtesy of DigiPlus InteractiveIn 2024, DigiPlus became the country’s biggest online gaming outfit by gross gaming revenue (GGR), a key industry metric that reflects the total amount of money wagered minus the winnings paid out to players. It retained that status in 2025 with record sales of 83.1 billion pesos ($1.3 billion)—up 12% from the previous year—contributing over a fifth of the country’s GGR of 396 billion pesos, according to data from regulator Philippine Amusement and Gaming. “We didn’t expect it to become that big that quickly,” acknowledges Tanco, who’s called Yosi (pronounced Yoh-see), short for Eusebio, by his friends and business associates.With his gaming sites, BingoPlus, ArenaPlus and GameZone, now household names in the Philippines, he’s looking to leverage that success. Expanding overseas, investing in a bricks-and-mortar casino and developing a superapp that will offer the gamut from e-commerce to insurance, are all on the table. “These will shape what DigiPlus can become in the future, which can go beyond gaming and entertainment,” says Tanco. “We needed to do something. The pandemic accelerated our move to go online.”