Marcos Oliveira/Agência Senado
Marcos Oliveira/Agência Senado
Bluffing is the ability, skill or strategy to deceive the opponent without having enough elements to win the game. They say that a good player is one who knows how to bluff: having nothing to offer, he wins without playing. Does this apply when it comes to regulating gaming in Brazil?
In addition to Bill 442/1991, approved in the Chamber of Deputies, Bill 2.648/2019 is being processed in the Federal Senate, under my rapporteurship. The objective of the projects is to allow the installation of casinos in resorts and the decriminalization of behaviors such as the jogo do bicho. Among the reasons that justify the approval of these projects are the promotion of regional development through tourism, the generation of jobs and the increase in revenue from the collection of taxes.
Estimates from the Brazil’s Gaming Legal Institute (IJL) indicate that the Jogo do Bicho in 2017 earned R$12 billion (US$ 2.36bln), bingo earned R$1.3 billion (US$ 256m), slot machines R$3.6 billion (US$ 710m) and internet betting R$6 billion (US$ 1.18bln). Therefore, even not legalized, gaming and lotteries outside the state monopoly reached almost R$23 billion (US$ 4.54bln) in revenue in 2017 – surpassing Caixa’s Lotteries, which earned R$14 billion (US$ 2.76bln) in the same year.
In Brazil, legal gaming represent 0.21% of GDP, a percentage much lower than in Italy, for example, where this sector reaches 1.61% of GDP. Considering the tax burden of the gaming industry at 45% and this sector representing in Brazil the same 1.61% of GDP, the legalization can add to the public coffers something around R$50 billion (US$ 9.87bln) annually. The indirect impact of this revenue projects this amount to even higher values. In addition, Brazilians travel abroad to play, bringing resources that could be invested here, in addition to promoting tourism.
It is essential that regulations are made that meet the international standards of inspection and control entities and demonstrate to investors that the market that will be created is organized and reliable. For this, it is important to mitigate the risks of money laundering, using the structures that already operate in this control – such as Coaf, Federal Revenue and the Central Bank itself – using systems interconnected to companies that exploit gaming.
In another dimension, it is necessary to indicate mechanisms of prevention and assistance to game addicts, which today already exist and, insofar as games are clandestine, live on the margins without public policies that effectively support them. These are some legitimate concerns that I share and I believe they can be resolved.
The bluff that I do not accept is that of those who want to ignore the fact that gaming is already present in the daily life of Brazilians. Federal lottery, horse racing, online sports betting, and so many other forms of gambling, including illegal or clandestine ones, that society knows about, knows where they happen and accepts. The bluff takes advantage of a view based on moralism, which we find, for example, in the preamble of Decree-Law 9,215 of 1946, which brings as a justification for the banning of gambling in Brazil supposed “precepts of cultured peoples”, “the legal and religious moral tradition of the Brazilian people” and “abuses harmful to morals and good customs”. Outdated arguments that put us on the side of only two G20 countries that still ban gaming for religious reasons and far from most countries, including our brothers in Mercosur, who have already understood that the sector is an important economic activity and cannot be prohibited for reasons of customs only.
Delaying this approval is bluffing. In bluffing, there is always someone who loses. In this case it is Brazil.
Angelo Coronel
Senador pela Bahia (PSD)
Source: Poder360
