The Ministry of Finance takes the first steps towards the definitive regulation of the betting and online gaming sector in Brazil with the publication, in the Official Gazette of the Union this Wednesday (10), of Ordinance SPA/MF No. 561. It establishes the Regulatory Policy of the Prizes and Betting Secretariat and the Regulatory Agenda for the 2024 financial year.
The objectives of the Regulatory Policy of the Prizes and Betting Secretariat are:
I - establish regulatory actions considered priorities;
II - provide legal certainty, predictability and efficiency to the process of regulating fixed odds betting; and
III - provide a stable, current, transparent and attractive regulatory environment for sustainable investment.
The Prizes and Betting Secretariat of the Ministry of Finance must consider the themes included in the Regulatory Agenda for the 2024 financial year as priorities when planning and executing the duties conferred by arts. 55 to 58 of Annex I of Decree No. 11,907, of 2024.
In the ordinance, the SPA establishes the Regulatory Agenda divided into four phases:
I - Phase 1: until April 2024;
II - Phase 2: until May 2024;
III - Phase 3: until June 2024; and
IV – Phase 4: until July 2024.
The Agenda is defined as follows:
PHASE I – April/2024
1 - Ordinance on qualification of certification laboratories (Ordinance MF-SPA nº 300, of February 26, 2014) - Requirements and procedures relating to the recognition of the operational capacity of entities certifying betting systems used by fixed-odd betting lottery operators , and live game studios and online games that may be made available to bettors.
It is worth noting that this ordinance was published at the end of February and, so far, the Prizes and Betting Secretariat has already approved GLI as the first certifying laboratory.
2 - Payment Methods Ordinance - General rules to be observed in payment transactions carried out by agents authorized to operate the lottery modality of fixed-odd bets in the national territory.
3 - Betting systems ordinance - Technical and security requirements for betting systems used by operating agents to operate the lottery modality of fixed-odd betting.
4 - Authorization Ordinance - Rules, conditions and opening of the procedure for requesting authorization to operate fixed-odd betting throughout the national territory.
PHASE 2 - May/2024
5 - Money laundering and other crimes ordinance - Policy, procedures and controls aimed at preventing and combating money laundering, terrorist financing, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and other frauds related to the commercial exploitation of gambling fixed quota.
6 - Rights and obligations ordinance - Set of rules to be observed by authorized operators to comply with legal provisions and guarantee the rights of bettors.
PHASE 3 - June/2024
7 - Online gaming ordinance - Technical and security requirements for online games that may be made available to bettors by authorized operating agents.
8 - Supervision Ordinance - Rules and procedures for monitoring and supervising the commercial exploitation of the fixed-odd lottery betting modality.
9 - Sanctioning action ordinance - Procedure for applying administrative sanctions in the commercial exploitation of the lottery modality of fixed-odd betting.
PHASE 4 - July/2024
10 - Responsible gaming ordinance - Regulation of actions aimed at promoting responsible gaming, regarding the measures, guidelines and practices to be adopted to prevent pathological gambling disorder in the context of fixed-odd betting, rules for monitoring and preventing bettor debt and complementing responsible advertising rules.
11 - Social allocations ordinance - Procedures for carrying out transfers to legal recipients set out in §1-A of art. 30 of Law No. 13,756, of 2018.
Source: GMB
