At Congress
The most recent evidence of the force that the issue is gaining was the vote on the urgency of Bill 442/91, which legalizes and regulates games of chance in Brazil. Occurred in the last week of sessions in the Chamber of Deputies in 2021, the articulation led by the President of the House himself, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), was successful and obtained 293 favorable votes against 138 against, ensuring that the project is voted directly in plenary, without the need to go through committees. This victory, however, is far from being the only relevant move to favor gambling.
In the Senate, at least four proposals dealing with the same subject - although they differ in the modalities and places where the practice would be allowed - have progressed in the process and gained media attention in recent years, in part, thanks to the performance of senator Ciro Nogueira (PP -PI), today Chief Minister of the Civil House in the Bolsonaro government, and author of the most comprehensive of them, Bills 186/2014, which releases the exploitation of games of chance throughout the national territory.
The strategic positions occupied today by both Lira and Nogueira – historical defenders of games of chance – in the political support of the government and in controlling the Congress' legislative agenda is directly related to the undisguised optimism of the groups that defend the return of casinos to Brazil.
In the Supreme Court
Parallel to the movements of parliamentarians, the Federal Supreme Court (STF) may end up boosting the regulation, depending on what it decides in the judgment scheduled for April 7, when it will discuss whether gambling can be considered as a criminal offense under the Constitution of 1988, since such typification predates the Magna Carta, in the Decree-Law 3688 of 1941, the Law of Penal Contraventions.
The specific case under discussion is part of Extraordinary Appeal 966177, in which the Public Prosecutor's Office of Rio Grande do Sul questions the decision of the State Court of Justice that disregarded the exploitation of games of chance as a criminal misdemeanor, under the argument that the grounds that based the prohibition do not conform to the constitutional principles in force. If the Supreme Court justices agree with the understanding of the TJ-RS, the decision will decriminalize the practice across the country, as in 2016 the Court had already recognized the general repercussion of the issue.
In Government
An essential piece on this board, the Bolsonaro government's position on the matter is ambiguous, which ends up reflecting the irreconcilable division of its support base regarding games of chance, starting with the ministerial team itself. Alongside Ciro Nogueira is the minister of Tourism, Gilson Machado, who in early 2020 went to Las Vegas accompanied by the president's son, senator Flavio Bolsonaro, for meetings with businessmen in the casino industry. In 2019, when he was president of Embratur, Machado declared in an interview to Folha de S. Paulo that with casinos, “Brazil will attract the tourist who spends.”
The resistance against the gambling lobby within the government is led by Minister Damares Alves, who has publicly stated, on several occasions, that his portfolio opposes the release, as occurred in September 2021, during an interview with CNN: “If the Ministry of Human Rights is provoked to issue an opinion, we will certainly express our opposition to the approval of the matter.”
Before becoming minister, Damares was one of the founders of the ‘Brasil Sem Azar Movement’, a group that has been working for years to prevent advances in gambling at the National Congress. It is also close to the evangelical bench in the Chamber and that is where the biggest obstacle for gaming enthusiasts comes from. With 196 signatories and considerable influence with sympathizers, when the Evangelical Parliamentary Front united votes, it constitutes a powerful force to block projects in plenary or even prevent them from entering the agenda.
That's what happened in 2016, during Dilma's government, when a similar articulation in favor of the sector was put in place, but thanks to the uncompromising combined opposition of evangelical parliamentarians, it had to be abandoned, returning to the drawer for a few more years.
The president
Pressed by supporters to speak out more clearly on the issue after the urgency vote, Bolsonaro said at a luncheon with journalists that he is against the liberalization of gambling and promised to veto the proposal if Congress approves it. At the same time, however, he made a point of including an addendum that many have interpreted as a sign that the government will do little to prevent approval: "If I veto and parliament overturns the veto, we will comply with the law."
In 2018, when he was still a deputy and pre-candidate for the presidency of the republic, Bolsonaro had already opted for demonstrations that beckoned both those who oppose and those who defend the return of the casinos. “In principle I'm against it, but let's see what the best way out is,” he said in May of that year, during a lecture given at the Rio de Janeiro Trade Association.
The division of positions on the subject seems to occur even among the president's sons. While Flavio is an explicit supporter of the installation of casinos in Brazil, Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro was one of the 138 who voted against the urgency of the issue in the Chamber, despite his well-known admiration for a great businessman in the casino industry: Donald Trump.
Trump
The former president of the United States, in fact, may be one of the factors that has been making part of the Brazilian right to rethink its historic opposition to gambling, after all, Trump innovated by becoming an idol of conservatives around the world, even though he is a millionaire owner of casinos who made a fortune with their luxury ventures. There is no record of any other political leader who has this profile and, at the same time, has taken decisions and given statements that so favored the demands of the American Christian right.
Coincidentally or not, the business partner and biggest donor to Trump's successful 2016 campaign, millionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson, was also responsible for publicly taking a stand in favor of gambling by the former mayor of Rio de Janeiro , Marcelo Crivella, who in 2018 admitted in an interview to Valor Econômico newspaper that he was talking to Adelson to build an establishment in the Rio de Janeiro capital in the mold of those that the magnate owned in Las Vegas and Singapore, and that he articulated with the parliamentarians of his state so that Brazilian legislation on the subject was changed.
“People know that if we don't have a job, we're going to social chaos. And whoever wants to play," said Crivella, who is licensed pastor of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God and nephew of Edir Macedo, the institution's founder.
What do conservatives see wrong with games of chance?
Despite this relativization by relevant exponents of the political right, the majority position of Christians and conservatives in general regarding the legalization of gambling remains in opposition, mainly because of the undeniable consequences for communities and families in regions where casinos, bingos, slot machines and the like are installed. The increase in the number of addicts, indebtedness and family breakdown are a constant feature, proven by numerous studies around the world.
Religious entities
With regard to religious, not only politicians belonging to Christian denominations have acted to prevent the approval of gaming, but also institutions have taken part in the debate. On December 16, the date of voting on the urgency of Bill 442/91 in the Chamber, the National Association of Evangelical Jurists (ANAJURE) expressed its repudiation, stating that gambling “facilitates acts of corruption, burdens the regulatory bodies and collaborates with the social decay that destroys countless families in the context of addiction”, adding that “this would not be an urgent agenda for the attention of the National Congress at this time.”
In 2016, when proponents of gambling liberalization were close to reaching their goal, the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB) issued a note to expose their apprehension about the same bills that are now returning to the spotlight.
Source: Gazeta do Povo
