The government's initial estimate predicted a revenue impact of R$1.65 billion (US$ 335m) in 2024 alone with the proposal, including taxes and fees, but the change approved by senators excluding online casino gaming from the text should cause a reduction of approximately 70 % of this estimate, according to the rapporteur, senator Ângelo Coronel (PSD-BA).
Guimarães considered that the change in the Senate could have an impact on the Executive's revenue.
"Next week we still have the project that we need to vote on, Monday or Tuesday, the 'bets' project, and our idea is to maintain the Chamber's text and include casinos, because otherwise it will greatly reduce revenue," he said in an interview last week.
"But, let's see, for the government the text doesn't matter because the Senate's text reduced the amount of revenue, but increased the rates," he added.
The matter is a priority for the Government so that the collection can be added to others that the Executive has been seeking so that the 2024 Budget Law includes such resources with the objective of zeroing the fiscal deficit.
Pressured by President Lula's interlocutors, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), president of the Chamber of Deputies, stated that this week everything will be resolved and even commented that the Plenary of the House would work from Monday to Friday to meet the goal to vote but on matters of an economic nature.
The proposal was approved by deputies in September and forwarded to the Senate, where the text was improved by reducing the tax burden on operators, increasing the grant period to five years and allowing up to 3 brands per operator.
However, senators from the opposition and the evangelical bench managed to remove online casinos from the project, which will have a direct impact on revenue, which could fall to less than R$700 million (US$ 142m) in 2024.
Senator Angelo Coronel's (PSD-BA) forecast was of something around R$10 billion (US$ 2.05bn) if virtual games and online casino had not been removed from the text through “conservative” amendments.
The expectation is that deputies will overturn the senators' decision and keep online casinos in regulation.
Source: GMB / Reuters
