Mexico proposes a strategy against child digital problem gambling
Deputy Mariana Guadalupe Jiménez Zamora presented an initiative in Mexico for the State, at its different levels of government and within the scope of their respective competencies, to design, implement, and evaluate a National Strategy for the Prevention of Digital Gambling Addiction in Children. The objective is to protect girls, boys, and adolescents from betting, gambling, and digital random reward mechanisms that incentivize compulsive betting or spending behaviors. To this end, the proposal suggests incorporating Article 101 Bis 4 into the General Law on the Rights of Girls, Boys, and Adolescents.
According to the document, the initiative is preventive, educational, and institutional coordination in nature, and would not supersede the regulatory or sanctioning powers corresponding to other authorities in accordance with applicable regulations. Its core focus is on the prevention, restriction, and exclusion of minors' participation in betting and gambling, so that their access cannot be promoted under the concept of responsible gambling.
The strategy must include information and awareness campaigns, digital literacy actions, preventive criteria, coordination and guidance tasks, and articulation measures with competent authorities. It also adds guidance mechanisms, early detection, institutional referral, and psychosocial care, along with the development of materials, diagnoses, and preventive criteria with a differentiated approach.
The text, referred to the Commission on the Rights of Children and Adolescents, starts by recognizing that access to the internet is an essential tool for exercising rights, learning, and recreation, but warns that it has also increased minors' exposure to risks such as cyberbullying, digital violence, aggressive commercial capture, harmful content, segmented advertising, and dynamics associated with betting, gambling, or digital reward mechanisms.
The initiative clarifies that video games, recreational applications, cultural content, and digital entertainment tools should not be generally prohibited when they are appropriate for the age and developmental stage of each person. It does argue, however, that preventive measures must be established against the simulation of bets, the conditioning of random rewards, the inducement to repeated purchases, the promotion of compulsive microtransactions, and the exposure of minors to gambling advertising.
Tags: Mariana Guadalupe Jiménez Zamora, General Law on the Rights of Girls, Boys, and Adolescents, child digital gambling addiction, minor protection in gambling