Payment methods at City of Dreams Manila
Where cards work, where only cash works, and how money moves around a resort with 938 rooms on the Entertainment City strip.
Play online →There are two payment worlds inside one building. On the hospitality side — the hotel towers with their 938 rooms, the restaurants, the retail strip and the event spaces — cards, cash and e-wallets behave exactly as they do anywhere else in Metro Manila. On the gaming floor, play is bought with pesos and settled in chips or machine tickets, and the cashier's cage is the only counter that converts between the two. No payment happens online under this brand: no online casino under the City of Dreams name appears in the PAGCOR brand registers published on 4 December 2025 and 16 July 2026.
Money around the property, area by area
- The resort has two money zones: the hospitality side, where cards and digital payments are ordinary, and the gaming floor, where play is bought with cash and chips.
- Room bookings across the 938 rooms, restaurant bills, the spa and event tickets are settled as at any five-star property — card, cash or an account opened at check-in.
- A card pre-authorisation for incidentals at check-in is standard hotel practice; the hold is released after checkout on your bank's own schedule.
- The gaming floor works in Philippine pesos: chips at the tables, notes or tickets at the machines, redemption at the cage.
- Currency exchange is handled at the cashier's cage for guests already inside, and the Bay Area has its own bank branches and money changers.
- ATMs are normal in Manila resorts and malls, and they charge their own fees on foreign cards — carrying some pesos avoids paying twice.
- E-wallets are widely used in Philippine retail and dining, including outlets around the resort, but they are not how a table buy-in happens.
- Nothing on this guide processes a payment: we take no money, hold no card details and issue no invoices.
Where each payment type is used
| Payment type | Hospitality side | Gaming floor |
|---|---|---|
| Cash in pesos | Accepted | The standard |
| Credit or debit card | Normal for rooms, dining, retail | Not used to buy chips |
| E-wallet | Common in retail and dining outlets | Not used at the tables |
| Foreign currency | Limited; exchange first | Exchanged at the cage |
| Casino chips | Not accepted | The floor's own currency |
| Machine ticket | Not accepted | Redeemed at kiosk or cage |
Practical money planning for a Manila visit
Bring pesos for the floor. Cards are convenient in the towers, but a table buy-in is a cash transaction and machines take notes or tickets, so the amount you carry is the amount you can play — a budget limit that enforces itself.
Foreign cards work at Bay Area ATMs with the usual double charge: the machine's own fee plus your issuer's conversion. Money changers around the Mall of Asia complex and along Roxas Boulevard are the alternative, and the cage exchanges currency for guests already inside.
Keep the hotel bill and the floor separate in your head. Chips have no value at the restaurant, the room account has nothing to do with the cage, and mixing the two is the quickest way to lose track of what an evening cost. If tracking it becomes hard, the National Problem Gambling Helpline on (02) 8248-9568 answers around the clock and PAGCOR runs a self-exclusion programme.