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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | September 2005 
NFL a Hit with Mexican Gamblers
 Chris Hawley - Arizona Republic
| | One way fans in Mexico can legally gamble on NFL games is by filling out forms at lottery windows to pick the week's winners. Football is more popular than soccer for betting due to the absence of tie games. (Photo: Chris Hawley) |
Mexico City - When the Arizona Cardinals and the San Francisco 49ers play in Mexico City on Sunday, their Mexican hosts won't have hometown pride on the line, but they will have money riding on the game, and a lot of it.
Sports betting is legal in Mexico, and every weekend thousands of gamblers line up at lottery windows or settle into cushy chairs at betting parlors to try their luck on American football. The matchup between los Cardenales and los Cuarentaynueves is the first regular-season NFL game outside the United States.
"There's going to be a lot of betting going on," Sergio Rosado Gascón, a computer engineer, said as he watched four games simultaneously in one of Mexico City's Caliente betting parlors on a recent Sunday.
Around him, football fans lounged in bright-red easy chairs or pored over sheets of statistics at lacquered tables. Waiters moved quietly through the room, dispensing sodas and cigarettes.
In Mexico, wagering occurs two ways: through betting parlors or a government-run game called "Pro-Touch."
To get into one of the betting parlors, customers have to pass through a metal detector manned by armed guards. But inside, the establishments are a far cry from the dim, smoky bookie joints seen in movies.
There are comfortable chairs and carpeting, with bright lighting and big tables for spreading out statistics sheets. It's quiet enough to speak casually. If it weren't for the televisions everywhere, it would look like a reading room at the local library.
At a counter along one wall, customers can place bets on everything from hockey to politics. Who's going to be on the U.S. presidential ballot in 2008? The odds are on Hillary Clinton and Rudolph Giuliani right now.
Parlors also accept bets by telephone or via the Internet, but not from the United States, where betting on sports is illegal except in Nevada and Oregon, which runs a state lottery game called Sports Action.
In most Mexican betting parlors, American football is the sport of choice. Fans can place wagers on individual games or combinations of up to five games.
Guillermo Moreno Colin, a 47-year-old exterminator, said he prefers to bet on American football rather than Mexican soccer because of a general perception in Mexico that U.S. leagues are less tainted by corruption.
"In soccer, you get the feeling they're always arranging the games somehow," he said. "That's why I play Pro-Touch rather than Pro-Gol. It seems fairer."
Pro-Touch is played at the country's Pronósticos lottery windows. To win, players must correctly predict the outcome of 14 NFL matchups each week. Pro-Gol is the soccer version.
Each entry costs $1 and has a $150,000 maximum prize that keeps growing if no one wins.
The game is run by the federal government, and the earnings go to welfare programs, officials say.
Soccer doesn't even come close to American football in betting parlor popularity. One reason is soccer bets are harder to win. A gambler has about a 50 percent chance of winning a football bet, because there are rules to determine the winner in case of a tie. In soccer, bettors have to correctly predict a win, loss or tie - meaning a 33 percent chance of winning.
At a Sports Book branch in central Mexico City, Oscar Palacios thumbed through a handful of betting slips as he watched a bank of televisions with about 20 other football fans.
"Soccer is tedious. Football is more fun to bet on, because there are more surprises," Palacios said.
But it also tends to be an upper-class pursuit.
With a minimum bet of $10, more than twice the daily minimum wage in Mexico, most customers who wager on football are well off. Rosado Gascón had $80 riding on the Cardinals, and said he bets up to $400 every Sunday. Palacios, who owns his own truck rental company, said he bets about $300 a week.
"It's expensive," Palacios said. "People who are earning minimum wage don't have the capacity to play like this."
The betting parlor business is dominated by Caliente, controlled by Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rohn, and Sports Book, part of Mexican entertainment company CIE. Caliente has 80 branches nationwide; Sports Book has 28.
The Mexican broadcaster Televisa also recently won permission to open 65 betting parlors under the name Apuestas Internacionales. The permits caused a scandal because former Interior Minister Santiago Creel approved them just before he resigned to run for president. Political opponents accused Creel of trying to curry favor with the powerful TV network. |
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