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Despite meeting with government ministers to discuss new measures to enforce responsible gaming, Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has held off on making any immediate decisions to impose potentially tougher restrictions on operators.
The floodgates have opened in terms of media and public scrutiny of perceived dangers of online gambling, after a series of negative headlines in recent weeks, including over a survey produced by the Central Bank of Brazil claiming that Brazilians spend inordinate amounts in the currently unregulated market.
Of particular concern is the central bank’s finding that many Brazilians were using their Bolsa Familia allowances, which are meant to be spent on general welfare and are awarded to those living in poverty, to gamble online. Other more outlandish claims since reported by Brazilian media include that heightened gambling is leading to an increase in divorce in the country.
The political scrutiny culminated in a high-level meeting hosted on October 3 by President Lula along with various other government ministers.
Lula was initially expected to make an announcement last week to introduce new rules that would limit advertising and restrict certain payment methods, specifically credit cards and Bolsa Familia funds.
These new rules are currently on pause, however, as the President and other ministers work with the vested parties on new ordinances that will apparently address these issues.
The meeting on Thursday afternoon focused heavily on the estimated 2,000 illegal sites that are due to be blocked in the coming days, in the wake of a September 17 ordinance published by Brazil’s Secretariat for Prizes and Bets (SPA).
Under that ordinance, every operator active in Brazil will shortly be subject to blocking, except for those 93 operators that have applied for a federal licence and been included on a whitelist published last week by the SPA.
Brazil’s telecommunications agency, Anatel, has publicly stated that the task will be complicated.
Anatel president Carlos Baigorri said that it “would be a game of cat and mouse” for officials to block new domains that are expected to pop up after the old ones are blocked.
According to an official government report on the meeting, once illegal sites are blocked, “the government will establish dialogue with companies authorised to remain in operation, with the aim of deepening the mechanisms for protecting the population”.
Dario Durigan, the deputy finance minister, said that more restrictive measures could come as soon as this week.
“What the President authorised is for us to make the restrictions, to talk to impose restrictions, however tough they may be, on any means of payment, which may include Bolsa Família,” he said.
Health minister Nísia Trindade also promised that there would be an ordinance issued to “strengthen this joint work and further measures that are necessary in this regulatory process”, calling online gambling addiction a “serious public health problem”.
Meanwhile, industry groups are seeking to rebut some of the statistics that have been commonly repeated in the Brazilian media as a result of the Central Bank of Brazil study.
On Friday, the Brazilian Institute of Responsible Gaming (IBJR) published the results of a study carried out by independent consultants which estimated the amount spent on betting last year by Brazilians to be less than half the headline figure published by the central bank.
According to the IBJR report, Brazilians lost an estimated R$16.3bn (US$3bn) through online betting in 2023, compared with the central bank’s estimate of R$34.9bn (US$6.39bn).
Part of the miscalculation, according to the report, is that the central bank examined how much money was transferred to betting accounts but did not properly account for how much money was won back in prizes. “The central bank's technical note did not highlight net expenses,” the report said.
