Mexico to introduce a segregated online poker market

Mexico is planning on introducing a new gambling regulation that would result in Mexico becoming one of the segregated markets like France and Spain. According to the regulation, Mexican players would only be able to play on .COM.MX sites, and can only participate in games that are hosted on Mexican servers.

After Black Friday, a huge part of the USA online tournament player community relocated to Mexico to be able to pursue their career, but soon they might have to move again, because the new regulation is going to make competetive play pretty much impossible.

Mexico has been planning the introduction of a new gambling law, as the current Mexican gambling law has been in effect since 1947. 

The new law has been accepted by the chamber of deputies, and will likely be accepted by the Parliament before the end of the year also.

The newly formed regulation body, the Instituto Nacional de Juegos y Sorteos (National Institute of Games and Lotteries) will have a 60 day waiting period after the law is approved, and after that they will have 180 days to give notice regarding the regulation. According to the plans, legalized online play could start as early as September 2015.

According to the new law, online poker will be legal, but Mexican players can only play on .COM.MX sites, and can only participate in games that are hosted on Mexican servers. 

Taxing is not included in the current law proposal, the new regulating body will give information regarding this later. They have quoted the Spanish and French laws quite a lot, so it is likely that they will also follow their lead in the tax matters, which would mean that a tax of 20% or a bit more can be expected after gambling winnings.

There are 120 million people in Mexico, so the market is significantly bigger than that of Spain and France, but the GDP/person is also much lower. According to estimates, the online poker market is around 1.5x bigger than in Spain.

Providers will have to apply for licenses, illegal rooms will be blocked by internet service providers and financial establishments aswell.

It seems quite baffling that any country would want to follow the French, Spanish or Italian segregated market, as most of these have suffered from really huge losses, in France, cash game traffic has dropped by 70% ever since the segregation was introduced.