Operator News
Brazil – Brazil to allow lottery, virtual and historical betting to save race tracks
By Phil - 29 July 2019
The Brazilian government is looking at providing a lifeline to Brazil’s ailing horse race betting industry.
The Ministry of the Economy is looking at a number of measures which could increase betting at the tracks and increase the industry’s visibility including lottery games tied to horse racing, virtual horse race betting and historical race wagering.
Luiz Alfredo Taunay, President of the Brazilian Jockey Club in Rio, told local press that horse racing is currently generating losses, meaning that tracks need alternative steams of revenue in order to survive and generate player interest.
New wording to the Provisional Measure of Economic Freedom would allow tracks to generate revenues via other means other than traditional horse racing. Talking to digital portal, Folha de Londrina, lawyer Luiz Felipe Maia, an expert in the Brazilian gaming industry, said that the measure is a response to claims from Brazilian Jockey clubs that they need to be able to diversify and make other forms of betting available in order to overcome their present financial difficulties.
“At present, the problem with the Jockey Clubs is that the cost of running a race is very high. Bets are often not enough to pay for the cost of the race,” said Mr. Maia.
In Brazil Jockey Clubs own racing tracks and are responsible for running them and each track is granted a licence to offer horse race betting in betting shops in the area in which they are licensed. Nationwide there are now over 150 betting shops which are officially recognised by the Brazilian Jockey Club and there are four tracks nationwide.
Although tracks in some case have had to sell off assets in order to pay off debts they have managed to survive so far. Through a number of agreements Brazilian race tracks are now being broadcast live around the world commingling local races into single pools betting.
image by By Halley Pacheco de Oliveira – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25217897
