Senator Romário requested that a BCB director be summoned to explain the rules prohibiting the remittance of funds to sports betting platforms as of January 2025.
According to the Senate Agency, Senator Romário (PL-RJ), the committee's rapporteur, invited the Central Bank's Director of Oversight, Ailton Santos, to testify before the committee (REQ 115/2024).
“The committee intends to hear from the BC's Director of Oversight the agency's plans to oversee this economic activity and prevent the national financial system from being used to commit crimes related to sports betting,” said Romário.
It is worth remembering that the Central Bank of Brazil is the agency designated to regulate the cryptocurrency market, since Law No. 14,478/2022.
The Parliamentary Inquiry Committee on Sports Betting and Match-Fixing wants to understand how the BCB will prevent the sending of cryptocurrencies for 'Bets' in January 2025.
According to the explanation released by the Senate Agency in recent days, Senator Romário cites a technical note from the Central Bank that seeks to measure the size of the online gambling and sports betting market in Brazil.
In the note, prepared at the request of Senator Omar Aziz, the BCB estimates that spending will be R$20.8 billion (US$ 3.7bn) in August 2024 alone.
There is an estimate of over R$240 billion (US$ 42.4bn) per year, which makes the activity exceed the spending of all e-commerce in Brazil.
In addition to estimating the amounts, the Central Bank technical note points out the difficulties in identifying these transactions, observes Romário. Estimates indicate that 24 million Brazilians are involved in electronic gambling in Brazil.
In Request 115/2024, Romário also recalled that the regulation of 'Bets' conducted by the Ministry of Finance will come into effect in January 2025. Thus, there will be criteria for sending amounts to the platforms, with deposits with credit cards and cryptocurrencies of any kind being prohibited.
“These same difficulties will be faced when, on January 1, 2025, the regulation established by the Ministry of Finance comes into effect. Among other points, the regulation establishes criteria for payment transactions, such as prohibiting the use of credit cards, virtual assets or other types of cryptoassets,” said Romário.
Source: GMB
