The initiative is the second involving the taxation of games to increase revenue, as the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, announced that he intends to tax virtual bets.
The decree provides that the sale of Lotex will be made exclusively by people with disabilities. The model has already been adopted in Spain, where Once (Spain's National Organization for the Blind) is responsible for the country's largest lottery and employs 17,000 people.
How is it going to be?
The government is going to open a tender for the concession of the operation of the new Lotex (Exclusive Instant Lottery).
Caixa will take over. After the publication of the decree, Caixa Econômica Federal will take over the sale of scratch cards until the government finalizes the bidding process.
Physical and online sales. The scratch card will be sold in physical form (card that the person scratches at the indicated place) and virtual (the site offers a version to hover the mouse over the place to be "scratched"). The gambler knows at the time if he won a prize or not when scratching the card.
Disabled person will have exclusive sale. The text being discussed by the government provides that sales must be made exclusively by people with disabilities. The objective is to promote "the exercise of fundamental rights and freedoms", aiming at "social inclusion and citizenship", following the provisions of the Statute of Persons with Disabilities.
Accessible and inclusive environment. Correspondents or lottery entrepreneurs who take over Lotex must provide a place with accessibility for people with disabilities to sell the physical product.
Authorization cancelled. Caixa and the concessionaire will only be able to dispense with the service of a person with a disability if there is no person in that condition in the region. Otherwise, the company may suffer sanctions and even lose authorization to market the product.
Out of the job market
The government considers that the measure can work as a public policy to insert people with disabilities in the labor market.
Government members analyzed IBGE data that there are 17 million people with some type of disability. The data also indicate that this group has lower rates of occupation, formalization and income.
New Lotex
There is currently no scratch card in Brazil. The product was sold by Caixa, but in 2016 it entered the National Privatization Plan. The first auction should have taken place in June 2018, but there were no interested parties.
In 2019, the government changed the conditions to attract interested parties. That year, an international consortium won the concession to explore the instant lottery service, offering the minimum bid in the auction.
However, the concession process stalled due to lack of understanding between the consortium and the government – among the problems was the lack of an agreement to assign the lottery network for the sale of tickets. The consortium withdrew the lawsuit.
Source: UOL
