Mexico Online Casino and Gambling Guide

Published by Casino News Daily editorial teamReviewed byFilip RadulovicOur editorial approach

Mexico regulates gambling at the federal level through a statute that has not been amended since it was published in 1947. The Federal Gaming and Raffles Law (Ley Federal de Juegos y Sorteos, LFJS) starts from a general prohibition of games of chance and wagering. It then allows the Ministry of the Interior (Secretaría de Gobernación, SEGOB) to issue permits for specific forms of betting and draws. Almost all of the detailed rules, including the basis for online betting, sit in the law’s implementing regulation of 2004, which was substantially amended in November 2023. Tax law has moved faster: from 1 January 2026, a reform of the special tax on production and services set a 50% rate on gambling and extended it expressly to foreign online operators. This guide explains the framework, the position of players and the main recent changes.

Key points

The 1947 LFJS prohibits games of chance and games with wagers throughout Mexico, except where SEGOB grants a permit. The Chamber of Deputies’ reform record lists no amendments to the law since 1947.
SEGOB, through its Gambling and Raffles Bureau (Dirección General de Juegos y Sorteos), is the sole gambling regulator. The National Lottery operates under its own legislation.
Online betting is lawful only through SEGOB permit holders: Article 85 of the Regulation lets authorised establishments take bets “via the internet, telephone or electronic means”.
From 2026 the special tax on gambling is 50%, and foreign online operators without a Mexican establishment must register, with temporary blocking of access as the sanction for non-compliance.
The LFJS penalises players and spectators found in illicit gambling premises. The sources reviewed do not show this being applied to people who play online.

Last reviewed: 14 October 2026.

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Historical development

Illustrated Mexico landmarks with reference books and documents for the overview section

The LFJS was published in the Official Gazette (Diario Oficial de la Federación, DOF) on 31 December 1947. Its first article sets the policy that still frames the sector: “games of chance and games with wagers are prohibited throughout the national territory, in the terms of this law” (LFJS, Article 1). For more than half a century the statute was applied with few secondary rules, so the scope of permitted betting depended largely on individual permits.

That gap was closed in part on 17 September 2004, when the federal executive issued the Regulation of the Federal Gaming and Raffles Law. The Regulation created the modern permit categories, among them remote betting centres (centros de apuestas remotas) and number-draw halls (salas de sorteos de números). These became the legal basis for today’s casino-style venues. According to the 2025 Chambers guide by Portilla, Ruy-Díaz y Aguilar, the original law was so short that the regulatory vacuum persisted until 2004, and the framework remains poorly suited to online gaming (Chambers and Partners, 2025). The Regulation was amended again on 16 November 2023, and a major tax reform followed in November 2025. Both are described below.

Legal framework

The 1947 law

The LFJS is a short statute. Its main provisions are:

Article 1 prohibits games of chance and games with wagers nationwide.
Article 2 lists the games that are permitted, such as chess, draughts, dominoes, bowling, billiards and sports, together with draws (sorteos).
Article 3 gives the federal executive, acting through SEGOB, the power to regulate, authorise, supervise and control games with wagers and draws, except the National Lottery.
Article 4 provides that no gambling premises or draw may operate without a SEGOB permit.
Article 5 requires permits to set the share of proceeds that goes to public welfare purposes.
Articles 7 and 8 empower SEGOB inspectors and allow unauthorised premises to be closed.
Article 12 punishes those who organise or operate unauthorised gambling or draws, and owners and officials who allow it, with three months to three years’ imprisonment and a fine.
Article 13 punishes those who knowingly rent premises for illicit gambling, and “players and spectators” present at such premises, with one month to two years’ imprisonment and a fine.

Because the law has never been amended, the fines in Articles 12 and 13 are still expressed in 1947 peso amounts, ranging from 100 to 10,000 pesos.

The 2004 Regulation and its 2023 amendment

The Regulation provides most of the operational detail. Its key provisions in their current text are as follows:

Permit types (Article 20). SEGOB may grant permits for racetracks, greyhound tracks and fronton (jai alai) courts, remote betting centres and number-draw halls, fairs, cockfights and temporary horse races, and draws. Each permit relates to a specific event or establishment.
Duration (Article 33). Permits for racetracks, frontons, remote betting centres and draw halls last at least one and at most 15 years. They may be extended for further periods of up to 15 years if the permit holder has complied with its obligations. Fair and cockfight permits are limited to 28 days.
Slot machines (Article 12). In the text as amended in November 2023, the Regulation states that “slot machines in any of their modalities are prohibited”. It defines them as devices on which the user plays for a wager by inserting cash or any other form of payment. Article 12 bis exempts vending machines, skill machines without cash prizes, and authorised remote-betting terminals.
Minors (Article 5). Minors may not enter or remain in betting areas.
Advertising (Article 9). Advertising must be clear and not misleading and must display the permit number. It must also state that betting is prohibited for minors and invite people to play responsibly. Establishments may not “explicitly promote” the authorised bets.

The DOF notes in the consolidated text show that the 2023 amendment rewrote, among others, Articles 1 to 3, 5 to 12, 20 to 22, 28, 29 and 33. Commentary published before that amendment, including the 2025 Chambers guide, describes licences of up to 25 years. Readers should rely on the current consolidated Regulation for permit durations.

Regulator and licensing model

SEGOB regulates all gambling except the state-owned National Lottery (LOTENAL), which operates under its own law and is owned and managed by the government (Chambers, 2025). Mexico therefore uses a permit system, not an open licensing market. Only Mexican commercial companies may apply. According to the Chambers guide, new casino permits are seldom granted, and 36 land-based permit holders were, or could be, allowed to operate online gaming. Permit holders pay a contribution of 1% or 2% of net gaming revenue under their permits, in addition to taxes. SEGOB may impose fines and suspend or revoke permits, and serious breaches are referred for criminal prosecution. In September 2026 the Secretary of the Interior, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, told permit holders to deal with SEGOB directly rather than through intermediaries, offered to regularise pending procedures, including those tied up in amparo (constitutional injunction) proceedings, and warned that venues would be closed and officials prosecuted if bribes were paid during inspections (Focus Gaming News, September 2026).

Online gambling and enforcement

Online casino games on mobile devices

The LFJS predates the internet and does not mention online gambling. The legal basis comes from the Regulation:

Article 85 allows authorised establishments to “take bets via the internet, telephone or electronic means”. It requires internal controls that record the bettor’s account number and identity and the date, time, amount and selection of each transaction.
Article 87 provides that internet bets do not generate physical tickets. Instead they create system records with a reference (folio) number that the bettor can consult and print.
Article 76 defines remote betting centres by reference to bets on events transmitted live in video and audio.

In practice, online casinos and sportsbooks operate lawfully in Mexico under the permit of a SEGOB permit holder. Foreign entities may take part by partnering with a permit holder (Chambers, 2025). There is no stand-alone online licence.

The sector-specific law contains no tool for blocking websites. The most important new enforcement mechanism comes from tax law. The decree of 7 November 2025 amending the Special Tax on Production and Services Law (Ley del Impuesto Especial sobre Producción y Servicios, LIEPS) took effect on 1 January 2026. It brings games with wagers and draws offered “through the internet” by foreign residents without a Mexican establishment within the tax. Under the new Article 20-A, those residents and the digital platforms involved must register, file monthly returns by the 17th of the following month and provide information to the tax authority. Failure to comply can lead to “temporary blocking of access to the digital service” under the procedure of Articles 18-H BIS to 18-H QUINTUS of the VAT Law. Article 5-A BIS requires intermediary platforms that collect payments to withhold the tax.

The 2025 tax reform does not license foreign operators. A foreign site that registers for tax purposes is not thereby authorised by SEGOB to offer gambling in Mexico. Whether the tax-registration route will in practice be used to block unauthorised gambling sites was not clear from the sources reviewed. When the measure was announced as part of the 2026 Economic Package, the Finance Ministry (Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público, SHCP) presented it as bringing foreign digital operators into the tax for the first time. The permit holders’ association AIEJA welcomed the modernisation effort but estimated that about 60% of online betting sites operated without meeting their legal and tax obligations, and warned that the higher rate could push players towards unregulated platforms (Focus Gaming News, October 2025).

Position of players

Playing with a SEGOB-authorised operator, whether in person or online, is lawful for adults. On unlicensed gambling, Article 13(II) of the LFJS punishes “players and spectators” present at premises where illicit games take place. The provision is written for physical premises, and its application to someone playing on a foreign website from home is not addressed in the law or the Regulation. The sources reviewed for this guide report no prosecutions of individual online players. That is not the same as a statement that no player could ever be prosecuted, so the safer course is to use operators covered by a SEGOB permit.

Taxation

Special tax on gambling (IEPS). Under Article 2(II)(B) of the LIEPS, “carrying out games with wagers and draws” is taxed at 50%. The rate rose from 30% to 50% under the November 2025 reform, effective 1 January 2026. For online games, the reformed Article 18 sets the taxable value as “the total amounts actually received from participants”. The increase was proposed in the 2026 Economic Package presented by the SHCP. According to SHCP figures reported by trade press, IEPS receipts from the sector were a record MXN 3,385 million in 2024 and MXN 1,952 million in the first half of 2025 (Focus Gaming News, October 2025).
Permit contributions. Permit holders pay 1% or 2% of net gaming revenue under their permits (Chambers, 2025).
Players’ winnings. Prizes are subject to federal income-tax withholding, and many states levy their own tax on prizes, at rates that vary by state (Chambers, 2025). We were not able to verify the current withholding rates against the text of the Income Tax Law for this review.

Consumer protection and responsible gambling

Mexico has no national self-exclusion register. The Regulation contains no self-exclusion scheme. Its consumer-protection rules are the ban on minors (Article 5), the advertising requirements (Article 9) and the internal-control duties for remote betting (Article 85). Permit holders must apply internal controls to keep minors out and to promote responsible gaming (Chambers, 2025). Any self-exclusion facility therefore depends on the individual operator. Our responsible gambling guide lists general support resources.

Recent and upcoming developments

2023 regulatory amendment. The amendment of 16 November 2023 rewrote large parts of the Regulation, including the slot-machine prohibition in Article 12 and the permit durations in Article 33 (consolidated Regulation). We could not verify from primary sources how the slot-machine rule has been applied to existing venues, or the outcome of any court challenges to it.
2026 tax changes. The higher 50% rate and the registration regime for foreign online operators took effect on 1 January 2026 (DOF, 7 November 2025).
A new gaming law. Commentators have long argued that the 1947 statute needs replacing with a law that deals directly with online gaming (Chambers, 2025). On 16 October 2025 President Claudia Sheinbaum said her government was preparing a reform of the LFJS, drafted by SEGOB, so that online betting would be “properly regulated” rather than prohibited (Focus Gaming News, October 2025). The permit holders’ association AIEJA said in December 2025 that it expected a new law to be adopted in 2026 (Yogonet, December 2025). On 3 September 2026 the Secretary of the Interior said the government’s draft was in the final stage of internal review (Focus Gaming News, September 2026), and in early October 2026 it was reported to be awaiting evaluation by the National Security Cabinet before being sent to Congress (Focus Gaming News, October 2026). As of 14 October 2026 the government bill had not been presented to Congress and the LFJS remained unamended.
Other bills. In October 2025 Ricardo Mejía Berdeja, a Labour Party (PT) federal deputy, tabled a bill to replace the LFJS with a new statute. It would create a National Institute of Games and Raffles under SEGOB, replace permits with single-establishment licences, raise the minimum age to 21, require self-exclusion programmes and bring online platforms within the law (Yogonet, October 2025). In August 2026 Alberto Martínez Urincho, a MORENA deputy in the Mexico City Congress, proposed amendments to the LFJS that would treat problem gambling as a public-health issue and require health warnings, stricter age verification and limits on gambling advertising. It must be approved by the Mexico City Congress before it can be sent to the federal Congress (iGaming Expert, August 2026). Neither bill had been enacted as of 14 October 2026.
Enforcement against money laundering. SEGOB has said it coordinates with the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) and the Finance Ministry’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF), and that casinos linked to alleged money laundering and tax fraud have been closed and sanctioned (Focus Gaming News, October 2026).

Casino listings for players in Mexico

The listings below are generated automatically from our casino database. They do not show that an operator holds, or operates under, a SEGOB permit. In Mexico, online casino gaming is lawful only through operators covered by a permit from the Secretaría de Gobernación. Readers should check that a site displays its SEGOB permit number, as Article 9 of the Regulation requires, and verify it with SEGOB’s Gambling and Raffles Bureau.

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Key points

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Historical development

Legal framework

The 1947 law

The 2004 Regulation and its 2023 amendment

Regulator and licensing model

Online gambling and enforcement

Position of players

Taxation

Consumer protection and responsible gambling

Recent and upcoming developments

Casino listings for players in Mexico

Sources and further reading

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