Mexican Senate studies new gaming law

The initiative analized by the commissions of Governance and Legislative Studies also seek to reorganize the sector and avoid those businesses to have duplicated licenses. Besides, it intends to prevent accidents and crimes on betting centers, and create a National Gaming Commission.

"A legal frame to regulate the games of chance and betting issue is seek to be established in Mexico; to order a very questioned activity in recent years,” said PRI senator and promoter of the bill, Verónica Martínez Espinoza.

It is due to the tragedies occured in those premises –such as the attack against Casino Royale in Monterrey in 2012- which have derived from a bad regulation, and due to the alleged illegality in which a great percentage of these venues operate.

He highlighted that nowadays, in several TV channels, cash draws and bets are made without controlling who are the bettors, which could even be under-aged, while it is not known if jackpots are really delivered.

Internet sites in which national and foreign companies make bets have also proliferated, and there have also been detected frauds as well as the participation of under-aged.

Martínez Espinoza indicated that those firms have affected the National Lottery and Sports Forecasts, with a media competence in which there is no strict control on a legal frame in which they operate, so the initiative "will watch the strict complicance of the standards and security protocols, and will have the power to close down and revoke licenses and regulate everything related to draws and bets by Internet, television, remote draws and transfronterizos as well as cell phone betting.”

It also proposes to create a decentralized entity to watch the transparence and report of accounts in the documentation and issuance of licenses and authorizations granted to those businesses and, also verify their operation.

Besides, it will be held the Board of Governors with the participation of Ministers of Finance and Government, as well as representatives from the civil society, who will listen to the opinion of the states, regions and local councils in order to determine if a betting center will affect a community or not.

Furthermore, measures to avoid Money laundering and other ilegal activities in the sector are being considered, through a regulation that includes the participation of financial and banking authorities, as well as the federal, regional and local governments.

If approved, the initiative will replace the current Federal Games and Draws Law from 1947, and will sanction casinos with up to nine years of prison and 1,000 days of mínimum salary to those which operate ilegally, which use slots without the authorization of such Commission and public officers that boost or help in the operation of those ilegal places.