Once again, conservative parliamentarians opposed to the approval of sports betting and online gaming managed to maneuver the Senate Plenary to postpone the vote on Bill 3626/2023, which regulates the activity in Brazil.
Led by the uninformed senator Eduardo Girão, who once again said that the activity will cause slot machines to proliferate in bars and bakeries, requested the postponement of the matter, but even before the postponement was decided, the president of the session accepted the points of order and decided to vote next week.
As last-minute amendments appeared, also a tactic to force postponement, Senator Angelo Coronel did not accept the requests to include amendments to the project and advanced his vote to approve the matter as reported.
During the reading, Coronel once again stated that this is a modern project that regulates an activity that already exists and that does not pay taxes. He further stated that “Brazil will be the biggest market in the world, even bigger than the United Kingdom, with the start of regulated sports betting in the country.”
He reinforced that Brazil loses a few billion reales in taxes without regulating the sector and that slot machines in bars cannot be confused with bets that can be made by everyone, comfortably in their homes.
Senators against the project, such as Eduardo Girão, Magno Malta and Omar Aziz, returned to the same point that the approval of the bill would open the doors to casino games, that this would lead more people to addiction and increase the manipulation of results in sport.
Even upset with the postponement, Coronel accepted the decision and asked the senators to reflect on the importance of the matter for Brazil to enter modernity and approve an economic activity already chosen by the entire society.
Rules
Rapporteur at the CAE and the Plenary, Angelo Coronel reduced the tax charged on the revenue of betting companies to 12%. The text approved by the Chamber provided for a rate of 18%.
The text also obliges foreign bookmakers to have at least 20% of their capital in the hands of a Brazilian company. The project establishes an initial grant of R$30 million (US$ 6m) to authorize sites to operate legally, valid for five years, with the right to explore up to three brands per operator.
The bettor will have to pay Income Tax on the winnings. Taxation will occur for prizes starting at R$2,112, and will have a rate of 15% on the annual prize.
Plenary Amendments
The rapporteur accepted some of the Plenary amendments. Two of them equate the tax treatment of Fantasy Sport prizes to that guaranteed to earnings from sports betting.
Source: GMB
