- New Mexican gaming laws will segregate Mexican players from the dot-com market.
- US players who relocated to Mexico after Black Friday will need to look for a new home when the laws come into force sometime around September next year.
New gaming laws in Mexico are expected to separate the online poker market from the rest of the world when they come into force next year.
A new bill is being presented to the Mexican parliament for approval by the end of the year. Although the bill provides a legal framework for online gambling, the requirement to operate all online gaming activities on servers based in Mexico will mean Mexican players being excluded from the dot-com market.
Many US players relocated to Mexican resorts such as Playa Del Carmen after the Black Friday closure of the US online poker industry excluded them from the leading online poker rooms.
The implementation of the new laws will leave many of them looking for a new home.
Offshore operators who do want a license can apply, but must run their games on a .com.mx web domain. They must also establish a registered business in Mexico to run the gaming operations.
Players who try to continue playing on the dot-com sites will find it difficult—the new law includes ISP blocking provisions as well as giving the regulator the power to block financial transactions to “gray” market sites.
A Segregated Market
Nevertheless, the Mexican market could be big enough to provide reasonable liquidity levels. Even after being segregated from the dot-com player pool, the market will be substantially larger than the Spanish market, and not far short of the French market.
Taxes for online gaming have not yet been written into the law—but they are expected to be at least as high as those in Spain.
On the plus side, the new laws will make it easier to hold live tournaments—maybe not enough to keep foreign online players resident in Mexico, but probably enough to attract some big brand name events to the country.
