Brazil Senate backs bill to revert effects of problem gambling

Rodrigo Pacheco, President of the Brazilian Senate, has backed a new ordinance to revert the “vices caused by sports betting and online games”.

This was reported by SBC Noticias, with Pacheco joining Brazil’s President Lula and Vice President Geraldo Alckmin in their stance that a new regulation is needed to protect the social classes from gambling harm, otherwise the soon-to-launch regulated market could be threatened.

“We now have to invest in calculation, regulation, filters of harder rules and try to reverse the wound that turned into this type of game in Brazil, making people vulnerable, who even use their social benefits to make bets,” Pacheco told UOL during the Lide Brazil Conference in London. “So, if you can’t reverse this reality, if it’s not something lateral in society, if it’s in the lives of all Brazilians that way, there’s no other way but to ban it.”

According to the Senator, it was a mistake to have taken six years between the regularisation of bets and the regulation of the activity. He also stated that there is no way to move forward with Bill No. 2234/2022, which provides for the legalisation and regulation of physical casinos before reformulating the legislation for online games.

“Brazil made a mistake in approving this law of electronic betting before the approval of physical casinos. We put the casino inside people’s homes and we don’t approve of the casino on the street,” Pacheco added. 

“So, the project of legalisation of ‘physical games’, let’s call it that, can only move forward if there is some kind of limitation, or reprimand the current reality of Brazil in relation to bets.”