Picture: Deputy Bacelar Press Office
Picture: Deputy Bacelar Press Office
At a meeting that took place at the Jockey Club Brasileiro (JCB), national turf directors met with members of the WG of the Chamber of Deputies created to discuss and update the regulatory framework for gaming in Brazil, including deputies Bacelar (Pode-BA), president of the WG , Felipe Carreiras (PSB-PE), rapporteur, and Otávio Leite (PDSB-RJ), member. The meeting was organized by the president of the JCB, Raul Lima Neto, and was attended by the presidents of the Jockeys Clubs of Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul, Pernambuco, as well as directors of the racecourses in São Paulo, Ceará and Goiás, directors of breeders associations , the secretary of the OAB Gaming Law Commission, Daniel Homem de Carvalho and the president of the Legal Gaming Institute (IJL), Magno José.
In conversation with GMB, Deputy Bacelar commented that at the meeting, the president of the JCB, Raul Lima Neto, pointed out the great financial difficulty of the 16 main jockey clubs in Brazil.
“Currently, jockey clubs can't survive just by betting on races. There is a need for them to be included in the gaming legalization process. At the meeting, the situations of the racecourses of Maroñas, in Uruguay, and Palermo, in Argentina, were mentioned, which were also going through a situation similar to that of Brazilian jockey clubs. With the permission to become entertainment centers, they recovered and today are potentials in Latin America. By legalizing gaming, we can do the same. If Brazil has to carry out experiments, the racecourses would be good places and, more than anything, we need to allow in the regulatory framework of gaming, that they can explore both bingos and electronic machines,” defended Bacelar when talking to GMB.
Federal Deputy Bacelar highlighted the importance of the support of Brazilian turf leaders to the WG and to the regulation of the activity in Brazil, noting that “they are part of this process and the sector's support for the approval of a regulatory framework is more than natural, since they will benefit from the possibility of installing bingo rooms on the hippodrome facilities, as well as videobingo machines.”
He stated that he suggested to Deputy Felipe Carreras that the premises already approved in the replacement of Bill 442/91 be maintained “of allowing the installation of bingos, videobingos and slots in the racecourses, in addition to virtual races,” said Bacelar.
At the meeting, the President of the JCB, Raul Lima Neto, drew the same picture about the current and difficult financial situation of the country's racecourses and that without new alternatives to be added to the bets on races, the survival of the activity will be difficult. “We have been looking for alternatives and implementing changes in the Brazilian Jockey Club, but they are mere palliatives. We need the regulation of gaming and be included in the process to transform our facilities into entertainment centers, as happened with the racecourses in Maroñas and Palermo, which operate thousands of machines and were reborn with the change of law in their countries.”
For Lima Neto, “there is a very favorable scenario for the approval of the gaming sector in Brazil and we need to be part of this process for the recovery of turf in the country. With the change in the law, the Hipódromo de Maroñas in Uruguay, after six years inactive, was reborn with the permission to operate machines. The traditional Hipódromo de Palermo, in Argentina, gained worldwide notoriety when it was awarded the possibility of operating more than five thousand machines. The same can happen in Brazil and this will allow national turf to return to what it was in the heyday of the sector in the country,” he said.
José Carlos Lodi Fragoso Pires, director of the Jockey Club of São Paulo, is another defender of the regulation of the gamng sector for the benefit of national turf. At the meeting, he highlighted that the sector employs more than 600,000 people directly and around 3 million indirectly and that the adoption of the so-called racinos model, as in the United States, can reactivate the activity with force in Brazil. "The permission to offer gaming and machines in the Brazilian Jockey Clubs, as well as the capture of bets on recorded races, will give a new impulse to the activity, guaranteeing an increase in prizes and the number of races."
Felipe Carreras, rapporteur of the matter in the WG, welcomed the support of the jockey clubs to the work group and that inserting the sector in the final text of his report has his full support. “It is healthy for horse racing that the activity is part of the new reality that the gaming sector will have in Brazil and this will be fundamental for the resumption of horse racing in the Brazilian scenario,” he concluded.
Source: GMB
