The off-site betting parlors proliferating across the nation got a nod of approval Monday from a Supreme Court finding that regulations established in 2004 by the Fox administration for licensing "sports books" do not violate the Constitution or existing law.The 9-2 ruling by the Supreme Court ministers means the Interior Secretariat is free to authorize new off-site betting centers, which have become increasingly popular - and lucrative - in recent years.
The decision was a victory for the executive branch, giving it more discretion over the granting of gambling center licenses than Congress wanted it to have.
It was Congress that brought the issue to the Supreme Court after former President Vicente Fox´s interior secretary, Santiago Creel, authorized more than 180 licenses just before stepping down in 2005 to seek his party´s nomination for the presidency. During its 2000-2006 term, the Fox administration licensed more than 600 betting establishments.
Creel in particular was accused of doling out the licenses for political gain, since most of them went to powerful business interests that could help his campaign. A company controlled by Televisa, the powerful television network with enormous influence over a presidential campaign, received more than 100 licenses hours before Creel left office. Creel lost the party primary to Felipe Calderón.
The Court stayed away from such political implications, but the effect of its decision was a complete vindication of the Fox administration´s gambling center policy, which is still in effect.
The biggest winner Monday was the off-site betting halls, casually called "books" in both Spanish and English, which had begun to spring up well before the Fox administration´s 2004 licensing policy went into effect. In books such as those run by Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rohn´s Grupo Caliente, customers can bet on horse races and other international and national sporting events as they watch them on TV.
The two dissenting ministers, Genaro Góngora and Juan Silva Meza, said they feared the electronic technology that makes the off-site betting parlors feasible will lead to "money-laundering and the massive corruption of people from all social classes, which is already happening."
The majority, however, cited that same technology as justification for upholding the current system. Noting that the technology essentially provides a different way of betting on sports, which is constitutionally allowed, Minister José Ramón Cossio said, "It seems to me much more reasonable to have off-site betting centers that are licensed and controlled by the Interior Secretariat than to have people betting on the Internet."
