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A proposal for a "Women’s Lottery" has been approved by the finance and taxation committee of Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies, in an apparent effort to raise funds to support victims of abuse.
At least part of the proceeds for such a lottery would go towards women escaping domestic and other instances of gender violence.
According to the current text of the bill, 25.5 percent of revenue collected would go to the Ministry of Women, 10 percent for “housing female survivors of domestic violence, 0.5 percent to social security, 19.13 percent for lottery operation costs and 44.87 percent to taxes and prizes".
There is peer-reviewed academic evidence of ties between gambling addiction and domestic violence.
In a Canadian study from 2007, 62.9 percent of participants in a study of self-identified “problem gamers” reported being the perpetrator and/or victim of intimate partner violence. Fifty-five percent reported perpetrating violence against their partner, regardless of gender. Links between kinds of gaming and violence or direct causation could not be established within the parameters of the study.
A US study from 2005, using a sample of 286 women admitted to an emergency room in a hospital in Nebraska, found that a woman whose partner was a “problem” gamer was 10.5 times more likely to be a survivor of intimate partner violence.
According to a 2019 study on Brazil, enough research does not yet exist to establish gender patterns in gambling. It did establish that men were more likely to have a gambling addiction than women and that men started gambling at a younger age than women and progressed faster.
Other Brazilian-based research usually chooses to focus instead on the criminal violence that gambling is often synonymous with in the public eye. In a paper from 2018, an investigation was made into the link between Brazilian bingos and gang violence.
Despite a lack of further inquiry into gender links in Brazil, there is strong evidence that domestic violence is on the rise in the country. According to data from the Brazilian Public Security Forum, femicide increased in the first half of 2023 by 2.6 percent despite homicide decreasing overall. Reported rapes rose 14.9 percent compared with data from the previous year.
At the time, the security forum wrote of its findings: “Although legislation is constantly being improved, legal provisions often do not translate into practice in the lives of thousands of women.”
