(Mexico).- The gruesome lunchtime slaying of three would-be casino developers outside a popular northern Mexican restaurant has delayed a congressional vote to amend a gambling ban and sparked calls for stricter controls on the few places Mexicans are allowed to place bets.
The proposal to legalize casinos, on and off lawmakers´ agenda for a decade, is a political hot potato in a country riddled with organized crime but desperately in need of jobs. The latest measure had been working its way through a congressional committee but stalled in the wake of the drug trafficking-style homicides April 14 in Monterrey.
There, three Mexican developers looking to build gaming establishments met with two investors from Las Vegas to compare notes before heading to lunch at Los Arcos, a seafood eatery.
The investors then walked to a nearby betting parlor to have a look around. As the Mexicans waited in the Los Arcos parking lot, two assailants who were watching from a nearby hamburger joint moved in and opened fire, said Jorge Cantu, a spokesman for the attorney general´s office of Nuevo Leon state, which includes Monterrey.
Lawmakers could still consider the measure during a special House session that may be convened in the coming weeks. But for the moment, "there was the need to pause for a few minutes and reflect on what happened," said casino supporter Consuelo Muro, a lawmaker from the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which controls the largest number of seats in the House. "We are waiting for a more appropriate moment to proceed," she explained.
Julián Angulo, a legislator from President Vicente Fox´s National Action Party who opposes casinos, put it more bluntly: "It stopped everything. What happened strengthened the arguments that money laundering and drug trafficking and casinos are related."
Gambling has been illegal in Mexico since 1938, when President Lazaro Cárdenas directed Congress to draft a ban amid an outcry that largely US-owned casinos were dens of corruption used to launder drug profits and promote prostitution.
Authorities shuttered casinos that had boomed in border locales, including Tijuana, after Prohibition sent US tourists scurrying south. Today, gambling is only permitted at horse and dog tracks, as well as offsite betting parlors, though a reform approved by the legislature in September made it easier for businesses to obtain gaming licenses.
Fox has joined many in Congress in supporting casinos, however. Studies prepared for lawmakers by tourism promoters suggest casinos in beach resorts and Mexico City and along the Mexico-US border would generate more than us$ 1 billion in revenues, and federal, state and local governments would stand to make nearly that much in taxes and licensing fees.
Yogonet.com / CBS New York / AP