Mexico proposes new online gambling bill

President of the Mexican Gaming Commission Fernando Zárate Salgado announced this week that the new online gambling bill will be presented to the House of Representatives in the middle of September for consideration and a vote.

Currently online gambling in Mexico is a grey area, no new gambling laws have been introduced since 1947 apart from some minor changes in 2004. The only regulation for online gambling operators is they should partner with a locally based business, however many offshore operators ignore this rule and offer their services to Mexican gamblers.

Although the full details of the bill are still not public many observers believe the bill will contain elements that would blacklist any of not all overseas operators that are not based in the country and not paying local taxes.

It could also require all overseas operators to have a local based casino partner to house the servers and ensure all regulations are adhered to. Very much the same as the US model in New Jersey, Delaware and Nevada.

The Mexican market is worth millions a year with many US professional gamblers using the country to gamble online while most of the US is closed to online poker. At present it is not certain if and when the bill will be voted on but one thing is for certain Mexico is moving to a more regulated market for online gambling.