After successfully launching a mobile lottery product in partnership with Carlos Slim’s Telcel last year, Mexico’s Pronósticos para la Asistencia Pública will begin to offer lottery games over the internet within the next two months. The lottery’s expansion will not be welcomed by private competitors including Televisa, which last year accused Pronósticos of ‘monopolistic practices’.

Against a background of rising concern over higher rates of taxation for private gambling operators in the country, Mexican media giant and gaming operator Televisa is asking the government’s regulatory watchdog to sink a bid by one of the two main public lottery companies to launch a new bingo game via television and the internet.

Media and communications giants are gunning for the Lotería Nacional, following a January Supreme Court decision that effectively opens up the Mexican market.

While casinos continue to be prohibited in Mexico, a change of policy by the Mexican authorities has allowed the introduction of gaming machines similar to US class III slot machines.

Mexico’s finance minister has announced plans for a 50 percent rise in gaming tax as part of a major raft of fiscal reforms, while also proposing the merger of the country’s two public lottery operators in a further cost-saving initiative.

The president of Mexico’s leading gaming association has welcomed the drafting of a new law that would subject Mexican gambling businesses to more stringent government regulation but warned that the pressures of realpolitik leave the bill’s prospects of obtaining congressional approval anything but certain.

Politicians and operators are calling on the Secretary of Government to establish a firmer policy to tackle illicit gaming as the Mexican gambling industry looks back on a year of significant legal and market developments.

A new gaming law drafted by a cross-party grouping of Mexican MPs could be voted on in Congress by mid-2009. If approved, the draft bill would allow the installation of Las Vegas-style slot machines in Mexican gaming venues for the first time, but would also introduce a ban on payment processing for unlicensed internet gambling websites. GamblingCompliance presents an analysis of the draft bill’s key provisions.

Spain’s main national lottery has begun to sell its products directly over the internet following the publication of new regulations in the Spanish government’s official journal earlier this week.

Mexican media conglomerate and gaming operator Televisa is reported to have asked the Government’s permission to offer bingo games over terrestrial television channels. The company is also aiming to persuade the Government to amend plans to impose a new 20 percent corporation tax on gaming companies.