In an interview with UOL Apostas, the Secretary of Prizes and Betting (SPA) Régis Dudena assessed the number of companies interested in investing in fixed-odds betting in Brazil.
“I think it’s a very high number, which shows on the one hand that the market exists, the demand exists, the demand exists, so the supply side also presented itself. These are companies that met the requirements, that paid the concession, that are willing to comply with the rules, now our role is to ensure that they actually comply,” assesses the secretary.
In August 2023, the Secretary of Prizes and Betting (SPA) received 114 requests for licenses, but by the end of the year, 70 companies were granted permission to continue operating in the country, and according to Régis, this cut has already established which companies met the government’s requirements.
“In regulation, when we chose the criteria, we were less concerned about whether there would be too much or too little. We were more concerned with ensuring protection for the bettor and ensuring economic protection.”
Large number of requests for the license
The secretary also assessed the large number of legal websites operating in Brazil. The number currently exceeds 200 and may continue to increase, depending on the requests that still arrive at the SPA.
“Personally, I had a smaller number, and I thought that we had raised the bar to such an extent that it would prevent more companies from complying with the requirements that we imposed. So, in general, I think that we had a fairly large number. If we think about well-established countries, the number of bets, the number of betting houses is much smaller. But what we see is that, in other more established jurisdictions, you have very different types of betting houses.”
“Although, looking at it from a regulatory perspective, thinking from the point of view of regulatory law itself, I think that the tendency is for there to be some degree of consolidation of these companies over time. I think that, especially if we consider that each brand, each authorization gives the right to three brands, and today we have many companies operating under a single brand, I think that over time there may be a consolidation, but ultimately, time will tell,” explains the secretary.
Land-based casinos remain illegal
Another point highlighted by Régis Dudena is the differences between fixed-odds betting online and physical casinos, which leads to confusion for many bettors. In addition, it is a different niche for the betting houses that currently operate legally in Brazil.
“To begin with, in Brazil, we have a very atypical business, which is that we have online betting available while physical betting in casinos and the like is not legal. There is a difference, and what often happens in these countries is that you have types of hyper-specialized betting houses, tiny houses that make very little money, but on this scale, houses with the ambition of the size that we have in Brazil, I think it is in fact a relatively large market,” explains Régis Dudena.
New betting houses can still apply for a license
Even with more than 200 legal sites to operate in Brazil, the Secretary of Prizes and Bets informed that new companies can still seek authorization to operate legally in Brazil.
“The authorization area remains in force, as the law determines and our ordinance recognizes. The authorization process is an ongoing process. So, we have companies that can request it at any time. We have already received more than 300 authorization requests. And we continue, our authorization area continues to monitor these requests that come in.”
However, for the secretary, the new requests for the Brazilian license still lack information.
“The truth is that many of the requests that came in the second wave, third wave, are very deficient requests. So, our expectation today is that the vast majority of these companies that came later, let's say, after August of last year, will result in a proportionally much smaller number of authorizations. I think that is already possible to predict. And then, in parallel, we start to have a scenario that bifurcates on our side here, which is to monitor the authorized, regulated market,” concludes the SPA secretary.
Source: UOL Apostas
