Quote:
Originally Posted by Gramps
Joss, do you or anyone else know off-hand if Mexico counts as 3% of Stars, et. al.'s market share?
Just wondering about the possibility of getting "grey marketed" (under the UK regulations) during that limbo period between the Mexican Senate passing a bill and the actual regulations being finalized.
(i.e. Pokerstars and others pulling out of the market early, even before their operations technically become illegal under the new law (if that is what ends up happening)).
Honest answer is I don't know, but I'd be surprised if Mexico breached the 3% limit. However, UK licensed operators must legally justify their operations in ALL countries where they don't have a national license--the 3% limit is a threshold for the amount of justification the UKGC wants to see.
Since the old laws were written so long before internet gambling, I think Stars are perfectly justified in arguing that it is not against Mexican law for an operator based in the IoM to offer internet poker to Mexican residents. I would be confident that they will continue there up to the implementation date and beyond (if they get a license).
@Muddy 7 - you seem to have skipped the first few pages of the the thread - the bill doesn't say anything about segregating the Mexican market from the rest of the World - but it does use some rather ill-defined language including "se atiendan" which make it appear that game play must be run on servers based in Mexico through the .mx.com site.
When I first suggested that the market looked like it might be segregated in an article for pokerfuse PRO, I hedged my language deliberately, because the wording--and I speak Spanish and live in Peru--was unclear.
I expected to hear quickly from PokerStars or one of the other major operators if my interpretation was wrong--whenever I get something wrong, I normally get a blistering email from someone--but my inbox is empty.
And I'm not giving away commercial secrets if I say that we have corporate or individual subscriptions from all the major poker operators--so they've all read my take on the issue.