End of a Dream? M
Mexico
Lorien Pilling, Research Director, Global Betting and Gaming Consultants reports
exico attracted 22.4 million tourist visits in 2010, making it the tenth most popular visitor destination in the world.
These tourist arrivals generated tourism receipts of US$11.87 billion. For a country that has developed such a strong tourism sector, making a good contribution to GDP and employment, it seems unbelievable that Mexico does not have an equally developed casino industry to complement it. The absence of casinos in Mexico, however, is not through a lack of debate on the matter.
The issue of casinos comes up for debate in Mexico on a regular basis: 2002, 2004 and 2006 were all years when it looked as if the Mexican government was on verge of allowing casino gaming. It came to nothing, however, and starting once again in October 2008, Mexican legislators began to have another look at the out-dated Betting and Raffles Law of 1947.
Casinos were first prohibited in Mexico by President Lazaro Cardenas in 1936. Then, along with most other types of gaming (except lotteries and bingos), casinos were permanently banned in the Betting and Raffles Law of 1947.
Gambling in large-scale “gaming parlours” (which have everything apart from gaming tables) is, however, widespread across the country. Despite the prohibition of 1947, these gaming venues are actually legal. The parlours have been made possible because of a piece of amending legislation attached to the 1947 law in 2005. The amendment allowed the Secretary of the Government to grant gaming licences at his or her own discretion. Consequently, the most common form of gaming in Mexico is this “mini casino” - a slot parlour with between 100 and 500 Class II slot machines often attached to a betting shop or bingo hall.
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The progress of this amendment starts in early 2005. The President at that time, Vicente Fox, tried to sweep away the gaming legislation of 1947 in its entirety. But lack of support for his bill in the House, combined with his own diminishing electoral popularity, meant that his administration could only add the new legislation as an appendix to the old law rather than revoking the 1947 legislation.
Entitled “The Regulation of the Federal Gaming and Raffles Law”, the new legislation did not permit “fully-fledged” casinos but it did pave the way for sports books, permitted off-track betting on horse races and other sports events, as well as betting on numbers games. The amendment also gave the Government Office the power to grant licences.
Before leaving office in 2005, the then Secretary of the Government, Santiago Creel, granted 763 licences to gaming parlours all over the country under this amendment to the 1947 gaming law. At the time it was by no means certain whether Creel was legally entitled to grant such a large number of licences. As a result, gaming operators who went ahead with their operations were taking a risk as there was a very real possibility that the courts could have reversed Creel’s decision and revoked their licences. The issue was finally resolved in 2007 when Creel’s granting of the licences came before the Supreme Court. The court gave its ruling that the former Secretary of the Government had been acting legally.
In the past the impetus for new gaming legislation has been to provide a boost to the Mexican tourism industry. Earlier legislation for casinos in Mexico has, therefore, revolved around allowing Las Vegas style gaming in five-star hotels and only in tourist hotspots. It was forecast that allowing 10 Las Vegas-style casinos in places
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