BAGUIO CITY -- School administrators and teachers in the city suggested a link between online gaming and habitual gambling among students during a government-led workshop on illegal gambling on Tuesday.

Vladimir Cayabas, administrator of the National Institute of Information Technology (NIIT), said local universities and colleges have gathered data showing students losing tuition money to online betting websites.

Cayabas said the city?s 460,000 college students, mostly coming from other provinces, are exposed to online games.

But schools like NIIT detected a shift in interest among students, from merely competing in virtual combat games to betting in online poker games, he said.

Cutting access to online gaming websites in schools, as well as passing ordinances to regulate access to popular online gaming sites, were among the academe?s recommendations to the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) here, following views that portray illegal gambling as either a singular police problem or a religious concern.

Cayabas said teaching the negative impact of gambling in elementary and high school classrooms could help condition the minds of young Filipinos against gambling.

Cayabas said educators believed that removing a future market would eventually curb gambling.

Mayor Mauricio Domogan said recent discussions on illegal gambling repeated the ?confusion and chaos? of previous administrations, when the specter of ?jueteng? and pay-offs also became hot topics.

Like in previous debates, the illegal numbers game ?jueteng? again made the headlines because of supposed pay-offs benefiting the Aquino administration, he said.

Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz said top government officials, including two who are close to President Aquino, have received gambling pay-offs.

?Let the DILG establish evidence first,? said Domogan.