Meron Wala Terms: What Draw, Llamado and Dehado Mean Under the Online Suspension

Meron wala is the pair of words a cockpit crowd shouts first, and before the definitions, here is the call on using them online: e-sabong stands suspended across the country, as it has since 2022, and Executive Order No. 9 directed, on 28 December 2022, that it stay that way. These words remain useful for following the sport at a licensed venue or reading about it. They are not a route to placing a bet on a website, and none is offered here.

The meron wala vocabulary, ruled term by term

Take care with the first row. Labels vary by venue and era, so meron does not always mean favourite, and the odds call, not the side’s name, tells you who the crowd expects to win. For how these roles fit into a whole fight, the sabong Philippines explainer page walks through the ring from the first pairing to the sentenciador’s decision.

How the odds get called

Rule of the floor: an odds call is two numbers, one for the money risked and one for the money returned. The worked example below is hypothetical arithmetic, chosen only to show how the ratio works, and it describes no real fight or venue.

On these numbers the two stakes mirror each other: ₱500 at risk to win ₱400 on one side, ₱400 at risk to win ₱500 on the other. The llamado backer puts up more and gets back less on a win, because that side is expected to win more often. The dehado backer takes the opposite trade, a smaller stake for a larger return. Neither position is a good bet by default: the ratio prices the crowd’s opinion, not the fight’s outcome, and a venue’s commission comes out of the picture too.

Why the suspension still applies to all of this

Words do not move with the law. PAGCOR coordinates the enforcement of Executive Order No. 9, and the order covers online, remote and off-cockpit betting on live-streamed fights, wherever the platform claims to be, so the same meron and wala shown on a website button sit inside the suspension. A site that prints them next to a balance is not offering an interesting new format; it is offering the activity the order stopped.

If someone sends you a link built around these terms, the online sabong ruling page explains what to do with it, and the e-sabong legal status timeline has the dates and the exact wording. Other glossary-style rulings sit on the casino blog listing. Anyone who finds betting talk hard to walk away from should ring (02) 8248-9568, a free and confidential number kept by the National Problem Gambling Helpline.