Money in hand is a whirlwind, it is a whirlwind; in the life of a dreamer, of a dreamer…, the poet has already noted. But the poet himself also sings that money in hand is a solution… and loneliness, and loneliness, and loneliness…
Yes, greed is a capital sin; but that is not what fixed-odds betting is about. Betting is not about the end result; betting is not about getting rich; betting is not about winning or losing, changing your life or stopping working. Betting is about enjoying the journey; betting is about having fun, being distracted, being entertained; betting, like everything in life, is about balance – between gains and losses, between the essential and the superfluous. Betting is, above all, about self-control and moderation.
It turns out that there are six other capital sins, and pride is the most treacherous of all. While other vices, as Saint Augustine taught, cling to evil so that it may be fulfilled, pride clings to good so that it may perish.
In other words, pride ends up generating in man a supposed aura of goodness, present and/or future. It is, therefore, the king of all sins, in the words of Richard W. Dortch, or the mother of all vices, in the words of Saint Thomas Aquinas.
And is there anything more arrogant than, with a single stroke of the pen – executive, legislative or judicial –, even with good intentions (of which, as Saint Bernard of Clairvaix would say, hell is full of them –, defining what a citizen may do with his money? Well, that is what happened last week.
Apart from the respective claims of the Federal Government and the public hearing held before the Supreme Federal Court on the impact of online gambling, the decision of Minister Luiz Fux, in the form of a precautionary measure, ordering the Ministry of Finance to implement immediate measures to prevent the amounts received by beneficiaries of social and welfare programs (Bolsa Família, Benefício de Prestação Continuada, etc.) from being used for fixed-odds betting purposes can be perfectly classified as the supra-capital sin of arrogance.
With or without a direct objective of this magnitude, the truth is that this type of deliberation reflects a thought that the poor need to be (re)educated and introduced to reason. Indeed, since this takes time, it is sometimes necessary to decide for them and regulate poverty, even from a moral perspective – especially when faced with a gift, in the relationship between the State and beneficiaries, as social and welfare programs, particularly Bolsa Família, are usually seen.
Now, as established by Law No. 14,601/2023, which instituted the Bolsa Família Program, this, as a social policy, corresponds to a stage in the gradual and progressive process of implementing the universalization of the basic income for citizens (art. 1, § 1), intended for the direct and conditional transfer of income (art. 2).
As a direct transfer, the benefit in the form of money grants (some) autonomy to the individual. However, it is not full, general, broad and unrestricted autonomy: there are certain conditionalities, provided for in art. 10.
These conditionalities include prenatal care, compliance with the national vaccination schedule, monitoring of the nutritional status of beneficiaries up to 7 years of age and school attendance for children and adolescents.
In this context, none of these requirements corroborate, unless I am mistaken, to a greater or lesser extent, the aforementioned court decision to prohibit the use of amounts received through social assistance policies in the form of fixed-odds lottery bets.
In truth, this type of control over the income transferred by Bolsa Família to its beneficiaries, in addition to being counterproductive and undesirable, is unfeasible and incompatible with the very logic of Brazilian legislation. Now, we are dealing with a minimum income based on human dignity, of a universal and direct nature: such monitoring seems to be exactly the opposite of the spirit – and perhaps the purpose – of the Program.
In fact, the sole paragraph of art. 3 of the law is in line with this understanding, by prescribing that, in order to achieve the objectives of the Bolsa Família Program, the privacy of beneficiary families must be strictly respected, including for the purposes of the General Data Protection Law (“LGPD”).
Therefore, based on the decision of Minister Luiz Fux, it will be difficult to put this respect into practice, given that preventing the use of resources obtained from social and welfare policies will – necessarily – personalize the matter, since it will be linked to a specific person, beneficiary of the respective program.
Therefore, whether from the perspective of respect for the privacy, intimacy and self-determination of the individual, or by virtue of the protection of fundamental rights, the free development of personality, human dignity and the full exercise of citizenship, as long as the data does not prove such a massive risk of indebtedness of the population due to gambling, and in particular a greater probability of this happening among Bolsa Família beneficiaries, giving greater emphasis to the poor in this regard, if it does not reflect prejudiced and discriminatory behavior, is, at the very least, exaggerated and disproportionate – or rather, it is a more than capital sin.
Felipe Crisafulli
Partner at Ambiel Advogados. Specialist in Sports Law and Regulation of Games and Betting. PhD candidate in Civil Law at the University of Coimbra (Portugal). Member of the Committee on Games, Betting and Responsible Gaming Law of the OAB/SP.
Source: GMB
