Mexican online gambling market struggles but has potential

It’s been a week in which Mexican operators and observers at conferences and in the media have outlined the potential but also the difficulties of making online gambling fly in the local market, assessed by analysts as worth $450 million in GGR per annum, with a CAGR of around 25 percent a year.

The problem is that only $50 million of that total is being earned by licensed operators.

The difficulties facing licensed operators include a punitive tax rate of 30 percent, which constrains promo and marketing activity, making legal operators less competitive in terms of presence, odds and offers versus the illegal online operators who access Mexican online punters.

These issues are compounded by Mexico’s banking and telecommunications shortcomings, with some experts estimating that less than fifty percent of the population have access to both a bank credit or debit card and the internet.

Consequently, many Mexicans are unfamiliar with online gambling and the legal facilities that are available to them.

Some analysts believe the Mexican market has the potential to grow to twice its current levels in revenue terms, but growth is hampered by the nation’s antiquated gambling laws.

These have been under consideration since 2014, when the lower house of the national legislature forwarded its proposals for extensive updating and change to the Senate, where they have languished ever since.

Through its inaction, the Senate has probably denied national government millions of dollars in lost tax revenue, industry observers have opined.