Mexico’s Interior Ministry has prepared a proposal to update the country’s gambling law and is now waiting to take it to the Security Cabinet for review. The draft is intended to give investors legal certainty while preserving the state’s power to sanction possible money-laundering offences and regularise gambling businesses that meet their tax obligations.
According to reporting from SiGMA and Infobae, Interior Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez said on 3 September that the ministry’s internal review, which involved government departments with responsibilities over casinos, betting venues and entertainment centres, was close to complete. She said the work had been done on President Claudia Sheinbaum’s instructions and added that operators should not try to corrupt ministry staff, with no brokers or intermediaries acting on Segob’s behalf.
As covered in August, a separate reform push in Congress had already sought to tighten gambling rules around player safety and online betting. The broader debate reflects a statute that dates to 1947 and gives the Interior Ministry authority to authorize, regulate, inspect and close unlicensed venues.
The pressure on the sector has also grown through enforcement. In November 2025, the Finance Ministry said a Security Cabinet investigation had identified 13 casinos as high risk because of large cash transactions, international transfers and activity on unsupervised digital platforms, and Segob later suspended those physical and online operations. Infobae also reported that between January and May 2026 the sector filed 202,045 gambling reports to the Financial Intelligence Unit, covering at least MXN 15.287 million in operations.
The Finance Ministry also published updated general rules in the Official Gazette on 7 August. Those rules adopt a risk-based approach, and covered entities must assess risks linked to operations, clients or users, transactions and distribution channels. Several obligations are set to begin on 30 November, with others phased in later.
