Federal deputy Newton Cardoso Jr. (MDB-MG), one of the most arduous defenders of the legalization of gaming in Brazil, participated in Afiliados LATAM, where he presented a lecture on the positive aspects of approving the activity in Brazil.
He traced a history on the progress of the regulatory framework for gaming in the country based on the Bill 442, of 1991, which was shelved for years. “When we discussed it again, the initial idea was to only approve casinos in large resorts. But we understand that other activities could be incorporated, such as tourist casinos and other gaming modalities, which was done,” he commented.
According to Cardoso, the approval of the sports betting law, in 2018, “was a great advance, in addition to an encouragement and expectation that we would deal with the gambling law in 2019, which did not occur due to the pandemic, in which Congress and society as a whole was faced with the challenge of combating the effects of covid-19.”
The creation of the Working Group (WG) on Gaming, in 2021, gave the Chamber of Deputies the opportunity to once again look into the project and “under the presidency of Deputy Bacelar (Pode-BA) and with rapporteurship by Felipe Carreras (PSB-PE), we managed to take the text to all government agencies to show all our concerns regarding legal aspects and responsible gaming,” he said.
For the deputy, “the WG arrived at a mature document and we approved the urgency regime for voting on Bill 442/91 in Plenary. It was the subject of discussions and a broad and unrestricted debate before we got its approval, earlier this year in the Chamber of Deputies.”
“The existence of gaming in Brazil is no secret to anyone and we find the jogo do bicho, bingos and casinos everywhere. Is there any risk of illegal gambling? Of course yes. These are people who work without any job security and Brazil does not collect taxes on these activities,” pointed out Cardoso.
Another victory was the approval of a project with a low tax rate to encourage tourism through the implementation of gaming facilities with a lot of investment and job creation, allocating a lot of resources to states and municipalities and important social projects throughout Brazil.
“R$ 30 billion will be collected per year from legalized gaming and we cannot rule this out,” he commented, noting that “we have achieved the commitment, from the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), that Bill 442/91 will not will be shelved and will be put up for discussion and voting.”
The deputy took the opportunity to present during his lecture the book by Luiz Carlos Prestes, “Brazil, you're broken because you want to”, whose content was reproduced by Games Magazine Brasil. “We had the opportunity to hold a public hearing this Wednesday, 29, at the Chamber's Tourism Commission to talk about the book and its importance in bringing even more light to an exciting topic with a strong positive impact on the economy,” said Cardoso.
In an interview with Games Magazine Brasil after his lecture, Newton Cardoso confirmed the appointment of Senator Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP) as the Bill's rapporteur in the Senate. “He is a senator with great knowledge and a modern vision, which will allow the gaming sector to be seen as a clean economic activity capable of bringing wealth from the generation of jobs and taxes.”
Source: GMB
