Brazil needs the jobs of the gaming industry

The first quarter of 2017 brought us an alarming figure: we have 13.5 million unemployed in the country. The figures are official and were released by IBGE at the end of March. Every time I see such dark numbers, I wonder how long we will be rowing against the tide of modernity without having a regulation for the gaming industry.

We published na article a few days ago about the end of the casinos in Brazil and this brings us to some simple accounts to evaluate how much the country stops generating jobs. If we make a comparison with the population of the time of the end of the casinos, we would have an interesting data about the reopening of the casinos in Brazil and the regulation of other gaming modalities. According to data from the 1940 census, Brazil had a population of 41 million inhabitants and the end of the activity caused the unemployment of 40 thousand workers.

Now, we are almost 208 million Brazilians (IBGE estimate at the end of April / 2017), or five times more inhabitants. If we follow the proportionality, today we would have 200 thousand jobs only in the activity of casinos. But the 1940s were completely different from today. At that time, leisure was for the few, the high workload did not allow people to stay in casinos for too long, and few women attended such environments. Today, with technology, time for leisure has increased substantially, women have the same rights as men, transportation is much more agile, Brazil has become much stronger in the world of globalized business and tourism increased substantially ....

If we consider other modalities, such as bingos, "jogo do bicho”, sports betting and some activities without regulation, we could think of more than 800 thousand jobs. Some may question my numbers ... And I think it's OK, because they may realize we could exceed 1 million jobs in Brazil thanks to gaming.

During the discussions that took place in Brasilia in 2016 about the regulation of the activity, much was said about the almost 500 thousand informal jobs of the local popular "jogo do bicho”. They are pointers, pickups (young motorcyclists looking for punters in benches that still do not use gaming machines connected by cellular chip), support team for bankers, graphic designers and other professionals in similar activities. Say what you want, but I admit it's a fantastic structure and, despite the critics, extremely reliable.

By the time bingos were authorized in the country, almost 150,000 people worked in the activity, both in the bingo halls themselves and in the satellite areas of the sector, such as printers, maintenance companies, manufacturers of balls, extractors, computers, security, cleaning, food, etc. If we adopt the same concept of size for the industry, we could repeat the numbers from 2006, when bingos were at their peak.

Today, when I enter the racino in Palermo, Argentina, for example, with five thousand gaming machines available to players, I wonder how many jobs are behind the activity. There are thousands of professionals in the direct activity of gaming, and more in others such as food, security, maintenance, cleaning, decoration, advertising agencies ... Even in Montevideo’s mall, we can see the vibrant machines of Maroñas ... A racecourse that was almost forgotten in a country (Uruguay) where turf was always a reference, and that was finally saved by the entry of gaming machines. And machines, as I said, need workers.

And if we talk about turf, modernize the activity in our country with the support of machines can also generate thousands of jobs in betting agencies, urban revitalization and related activities. As we can see, the opportunities are there. It is enough for the government to have the courage to call upon itself the responsibility to regulate the activity and be responsible for having promoted the generation of one million jobs ...

Gildo Mazza, a journalist specialized in the gaming industry, editor of Games Magazine since its founding in 1997. He has also collaborated in the magazine’s editions in Italy, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico and Argentina.