A survey carried out by the report of ‘O Tempo’ newspaper shows that 35 of the top 40 teams in the country have some type of brand on their uniforms. There are 19 different companies.
Everything that involves betting in Brazil follows the provisions of Law 13,756, of 2018. The text legalizes the operation of houses in the country, but gave a period of four years for the activity to be regulated. This validity ends in December of this year, but it seems far from an end.
Meanwhile, companies work in the so-called “gray zone”, in which the option for countries with tax advantages is a clear rule. Of the 19 that sponsor Brazilian clubs, 10 are located in Curaçao, five in Costa Rica, two in Malta, one in the United Kingdom and one has two headquarters, in Australia and Gibraltar.
Betting professional Felipe Fernandes, 31, has a YouTube channel on the subject with almost 7,000 subscribers. A resident of Belo Horizonte, he has been working in the field for nine years and founded the Brazilian Association of Sports Betting (Abaesp). He defends a regulation of the subject, despite profiting from the current model. “Regulation is very important, as long as it is done correctly. If it is done in a way that is not correct, it can motivate people to look abroad (in irregularities), without the government knowing,” he points out.
One of the main discussions about regulation revolves around the taxation of winnings from betting. Industry people and experts advocate that taxes focus only on corporate profits, without burdening the gambler. The assessment is that unfavorable legislation will drive homes away from Brazil. As the demand will continue regardless of the legislation, illegality will accompany it if the companies do not come to the country.
“I have no doubt that taxation on GGR (Gaming Gross Revenue), not on turnover (gross revenue), is much fairer and much more attractive to the market. It is much more attractive to bring those bookmakers that operate into that gray area, otherwise it will become unsustainable. The great challenge of regulation is to be able to make legislation that makes the Brazilian market competitive,” explains lawyer Mariana Chamelette, a specialist in sports law.
Another concern of Chamelette concerns the crime of money laundering. Specialists indicate that part of the companies based in tax havens are used as a maneuver to evade financial gains. “There are two points that are essential. The first refers to the need to identify the bettor and the recipient of the prize, so that it is known who is the person behind the money. In addition, it is necessary to impose, for some legal entities, the communication of information regarding gamblers and securities transactions to the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF),” says the lawyer.
The academic coordinator of the Sports Management course at Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV), Pedro Trengrouse, is yet another advocate of regulation. He talks about protecting the "people's economy" with the rule. "Regulation is important to ensure that operators are effectively able to honor their commitments. In 2017, thousands of bettors were left without winnings because the stalls did not honor bets on the results of the 13th round of Serie A, in which visiting teams won the most of matches, significantly raising the prize pool", he says.
Professor Pedro Trengrouse and lawyer Mariana Chamelette defend that Brazilian regulations follow successful examples, such as British legislation. The Düsseldorf Institute of Commerce and Economics points to the UK as the best tax model for online gambling, with a 15% tax on GGR (household income) and channeling over 95% of gamblers. That is, less than 5% of bets are placed on irregularities. The negative example is Portugal, where only 38% of guesses are made in strict legality.
Making money requires studies
Anyone who works in the market professionally, that is, lives financially from betting, is right when dealing with the subject: it takes a lot of study and experience to succeed. There is no cake recipe or magic formula that makes the regular consumer become an overnight specialist and make a fortune. Gabriel Andrade has been working in the sector for six years and talks about the difficulties of making a living from betting.
“Of these six years I have been working, I have only become profitable from the third year onwards. In mid-2019, I decided to quit the job I had to fully dedicate myself to this and survive with my own bankroll,” he says. According to him, gamblers organize themselves mainly through social networks, where the most different modalities come into debate: from traditional to electronic games, as well as curious sports, such as dog racing.
“In Brazil, the scenario started very criminalized. A lot of people started looking at it as gambling, not as an investment, which made growth very difficult in the beginning. But, over time, this prejudice was falling away. The economic situation in our country (very unstable in recent years) helped a lot in the boom,” says Gabriel Andrade.
Betting professional Felipe Fernandes follows the notion brought by his colleague. “If you expect to take a significant amount of money that can really impact your life, you have to take it seriously. And the most important thing is that it will take a long time. It's not a 100 meter run. It’s a marathon,” he says. The expert claims that he attends 16 hours of football matches on weekends to specialize, in addition to having a master's degree that combines computing and sports management.
The economist of the Brazilian Association of Financial Educators (Abefin), Diercio Ferreira da Silva Filho, analyzes the issue more carefully. He does not recognize betting as an investment. “In addition to not having regulation in the country by the Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM), luck is involved. Being lucky or unlucky, not having a way to monitor the risk, it has no way to classify it as an investment,” he claims.
Companies invest heavily
Half of the betting advertisements of the 35 teams in the Brasileirão series A and B are located in the noblest area of the jerseys: the master sponsorship, just below the shield. Only Palmeiras in Serie A does not have such a partnership, while Brusque, Grêmio, Novorizontino and Tombense resist in B. Still in the second division, there are extreme cases in which the same bookmaker appears in more than one place on the uniform, strategy adopted by Ponte Preta, Sampaio Corrêa and CSA.
In Minas, Atlético and América enter the field promoting bets on their jersey, while Cruzeiro displays a brand on the shoulders. There are also sponsorships on the sleeves and back in teams from series A and B. In an innovative example, Operário de Ponta Grossa (PR), who plays the access division, only displays the betting brand on his social networks.
Forecast by consultancy H2 Gambling Capital, specialized in the betting area, points out that Brazil should have a geometric growth in business volume in the sector by 2026. The estimate is that the growth will be 17% until then, numbers that can change drastically for more or less depending on the regulation to be made.
High quote
Inside the data: sports betting houses dominate Brazilian club uniforms
- 35 of the 40 clubs in the A and B series (87.5%) show brands of the sector
- Palmeiras is the only one of the elite without sponsorship of bets. In Série B, Brusque, Grêmio, Tombense and Novorizontino are not partners either.
- Of the 35 sponsorships, 17 are master (the noblest advertisement for the uniform, below the shield); three are in shorts; four in the back; six on the sleeves, four on the shoulders and one on social media
- There are 19 different brands advertising in first and second division clubs. Pixbet sponsors 10 clubs, including Cruzeiro and América.
- 52.6% of bookmakers with sponsorship in series A and B are based in Curaçao.
Source: O Tempo
