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Brazil’s Senate abruptly postponed its planned vote on a sweeping gaming expansion bill, after opponents insisted that senators’ attention be focused exclusively on an ongoing parliamentary investigation into online betting.
The rapporteur of Bill 2234/2022 exercised his authority to withdraw the casino and bingo bill from the Senate’s voting agenda for Wednesday (December 4), despite repeated attempts by Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco to engineer a way forward.
The move came after various senators gave impassioned speeches against the bill, which has been pending before the Senate for nearly three years following its approval by the lower house of Congress in February 2022.
As approved by a Senate committee in June, the measure would allow one to three casino-resorts in each of Brazil’s 27 states plus video-bingo terminals in standalone bingo halls, sports arenas and at racetracks in municipalities across the country. Licences would also be issued for the currently illegal but ubiquitous traditional numbers games of jogo do bicho.
Repeating comments made at recent industry conferences, bill rapporteur Senator Irajá said Brazil’s decades-long prohibition on gaming only benefited organised crime groups.
Still, he acknowledged casino expansion now faced a “hostile environment” after being “contaminated” in recent months by concerns related to sports betting and online gaming.
Brazil’s Senate approved a bill to authorise online betting almost exactly a year ago, but ultimately lost a lobbying battle with the Chamber of Deputies who rejected senators’ preference to limit the legislation strictly to sports betting and not allow online casino games.
Following a series of negative headlines regarding the rapid growth of online betting in Brazil, the Senate last month formally established a special parliamentary commission (CPI) on online betting with a broad mandate to investigate concerns of gambling addiction and money laundering.
The CPI will ultimately be expected to make policy recommendations in specific areas, including proposing additional rules for advertising and responsible gambling that may go above and beyond those already adopted by Brazil’s Ministry of Finance for the regulated market that is due to launch on January 1.
During Wednesday’s voting session, Senator Eduardo Girão, perhaps the Senate’s staunchest gambling opponent, said online betting sites were committed to “misleading advertising” focused on young people and legalisation of casinos and bingo halls would “close the circle by focusing on the elderly, especially retirees”.
He rejected arguments that casinos would boost Brazilian tourism and alleged that the bill was being driven by lobbyists connected to Ortiz brothers who founded video-bingo manufacturers Ortiz and Zitro and now were seeking “a monopoly for themselves here in Brazil”.
Another gambling critic, Senator Carlos Viana, added that proponents of land-based gaming were seeking to fast-track Bill 2234/2022 because they “do not want, under any circumstances, to leave the vote until after the investigations into online betting, since the results are already clear that betting does nothing for the economy other than drain the budgets of people.”
Several senators presented motions ahead of Wednesday’s session to formally postpone the vote and recommit Bill 2234/2022 for further review by Senate committees.
Those motions were not voted on as Pacheco instead agreed to request additional information on gambling from Brazil’s ministries of health and social assistance, thereby delaying a floor vote until an undetermined point in 2025 when he will no longer be serving as Senate President.
The delay means both gambling opponents and proponents in Brazil’s Senate are likely to focus their immediate attention on the CPI on online gambling as well as an overlapping parliamentary commission that is probing risks of match-fixing related to sports betting.
The Senate CPI on online betting held its fourth formal meeting on Tuesday (December 3) where members received testimony from João Studart, CEO of Betnacional, the Brazil-facing online gambling company that is being acquired by Flutter.
Also at the meeting, the president of Rio de Janeiro state lottery LOTERJ criticised the year-long implementation period for Brazil’s national licensing system and insisted that Rio’s local regime enabling state-licensed operators to accept bets from throughout Brazil was permissible under federal laws.
Regis Dudena, head of the Brazilian Ministry of Finance’s Secretariat for Prizes and Bets, also had been due to testify but was unable to due to a scheduling conflict. Dudena is expected to appear before the Senate CPI as soon as next week.
