Pacheco has avoided taking a stand on the merits of the matter, but has already indicated to allies that he will not be in a hurry to proceed. He stated that the proposal will still go through committees before being taken to the plenary, signaling that the House is not ready to vote on the matter and that the debate will be deepened. “Once it gets to the Senate, we will make an assessment of which committees it should pass. We are going to allow the discussion within the Senate, as President Arthur Lira allowed in the Chamber,” he informed in a conversation with journalists.
PSD leader in the Senate, which holds the second largest bench, Senator Nelsinho Trad (MS), said that the issue deserves “a broad and in-depth debate.” The leader of Podemos, Álvaro Dias (PR), who represents the third largest bench, said that he is against the project and that the text “will encounter strong resistance in the Senate.” Dias points out that there is a lot of pressure for the approval of the matter, which he classified as a “powerful and shady scheme that could lead to approval” of the proposal.
The approval of the project in the Chamber, by close vote, represented a defeat for the evangelical bench, which mobilized to prevent the legalization of the sector, and a victory for the president of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), who listed the project among his priorities of the year.
The government plays a double game with the matter. President Jair Bolsonaro has already warned that he will veto the proposal if it is approved by Congress. But, in the vote, the leader of the Planalto in the Chamber, Ricardo Barros (PP-PR), freed the government bench to vote as they wished.
“Through the project, we will have the risk of money laundering from organized crime and even concerns of the most religious groups. We will have resistance in approving,” said the deputy leader of the government, senator Alessandro Vieira (Citizenship-SE).
Senator Carlos Viana (MDB-MG), deputy leader of the government, also spoke out against approving the project. According to him, the legalization of gaming has the potential to bring revenue to the country, through taxation of activities and establishments, but this revenue would not compensate for the increase in spending on public health and the fight against organized crime resulting from the sector.
“International experience shows that large casinos are used for money laundering, drug trafficking and prostitution. The inspection of this sector is very difficult. In addition, gambling and betting addiction is part of the International Code of Diseases,” explained Viana through social networks.
The leader of the government in the Chamber, deputy Ricardo Barros (PP-PR), anticipated during the vote that the president of the Republic, Jair Bolsonaro, intends to veto the project if the Senate also approves it.
Senator Luiz do Carmo (MDB-GO) expressed the same opinion, and asked colleagues to “reflect on the consequences” of legalization. “[The project] is an incentive to the moral degradation of Brazilians. The economic gains that the release of the activity would theoretically bring about would provoke, as a reaction, more spending on the recovery of families who will suffer from the misfortunes provided by the addiction to gambling. I strongly believe that legalizing will increase indebtedness and shake families up,” he said.
Senator Eduardo Girão (Podemos-CE) classified the decision of the Chamber of Deputies as “hasty” and stated that the Senate needs to reverse it. Senator Jorge Kajuru (Podes-GO) said that the topic is “controversial” and requires “wide discussion.”
Defense
On the other hand, Senator Angelo Coronel (PSD-BA) defended the legalization of gambling, citing, in addition to revenue gains, job creation and opportunities to promote regional development and tourism. For Coronel, criticism of legalization is based on “moralism”.
“The bluff I don't accept is that of those who want to ignore the fact that gaming is already present in the daily life of Brazilians. Federal lottery, turf, online sports betting, and so many other forms of games, including illegal or clandestine, that society knows they happen and accepts. Outdated arguments put us on the side of only two G20 countries that still ban games for religious reasons and far from most countries, including our brothers in Mercosur, who have already understood that the gaming sector is an important economic activity and cannot be banned for reasons of customs only,” argued the senator in an article published in the press.
Coronel is the rapporteur of a Senate proposal for the release of gaming (Bill 2.648/2019). The text authorizes the operation of casinos within resorts. The senator also claims that the financial volume mobilized by games of chance banned today is higher than the money collected by Caixa Econômica Federal with lotteries. According to him, the legalization of these activities can reach almost 2% of GDP. At the same time, attention must be paid to the concerns of other senators with crime and social impacts.
“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 assistance to gambling addicts, which already exist today and, to the extent of the clandestinity of the sector, 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 addressed,” he said.
Unlike the bench in the Chamber, which voted mostly in favor of the text, the leader of the PL in the Senate, Carlos Portinho (RJ), has reservations about the matter: “This is a topic that needs more reflection. In the Senate, even because of its more conservative profile, it is a topic that will demand a lot of debate. I, in particular, think that we have turned off all the faucets of corruption in our country, and I am very afraid that with the release of gaming we are opening a faucet for those who have seen all faucets turned off.”
The evangelical bench is also preparing to intensify the pressure on the senators. One of the strategies involves Pacheco. Members of the group want to put on the negotiating table, including support for the possible project of Pacheco's reelection to the command of the House, if he confirms the withdrawal of the pre-candidacy for the Presidency of the Republic.
Although he does not publicly defend the matter, the president's son, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ), took part in a trip to the United States in 2020 to deal precisely with the release of the gaming. Pastor Silas Malafaia played down the incident. According to him, “Flávio has sense...he will not vote for the legalization of gaming. It's one thing to travel to learn more about it, another to vote for it,” he declared.
Source: GMB
