Mexican President says that she has no plans to update gaming law
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has clarified that she has no plans to update Mexico’s gaming laws or modify it. Earlier this month Ricardo Monreal Ávila, the president of the Political Coordination Board of the Chamber of Deputies, claimed that the Secretary of the Interior, Rosa Icela Rodríguez had informed deputies that the newly elected president planned to tackle gambling reform.
However the President said that her administration had no plans to send a new Gaming and Lottery Law to Congress or modify it in any way. Instead she said that her administration, through Rosa Icela Rodríguez, intended only to engage in dialogue with the owners of gaming establishments.
“At this moment, there is no new law,” the president said during her morning press conference when asked about Monreal’s statements. “Rosa Icela is speaking with casino owners so that if any corruption arises, it can be reported immediately to prevent schemes that may still exist among certain officials from the past administration, prior to President López Obrador taking office,” she said.
The Betting and Raffles Law of 1947 banned casinos and gaming throughout Mexico. In 2005 President Vicente Fox tried to overturn the act but managed only to insert an amendment in the form of an appendix to the old law. However the changes to the law were highly significant as they allowed for sports betting, as well as the opening of bingo halls and slot parlours nationwide.
In November 2020 Sheinbaum’s predecessor Andres Manuel López Obrador asked then head of the Interior Ministry, to carry out an investigation into whether gambling licences had been issued unlawfully under previous administrations. The president said there were question marks over some of the licences issued under President Vicente Fox’s administration.
Former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, the presidential candidate for the country’s ruling leftist party Morena and a close ally of the previous president was overwhelmingly elected Mexico’s first female president in June.
