Legislation

Brazil – Opposition to online gambling bill growing

By James - 11 December 2023

The president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, has called for a concentrated effort to vote on the nomination of 26 officials, and other matters pending on the plenary agenda including the regulation of sports betting (PL 845/2023). However according to the Senate News Agency the bill is facing growing resistance.

In addition the senate plenary has an extremely busy schedule ahead of the summer recess.  In Brazil each Congress is divided in four sessions. Each session begins on February 2nd stops on July 17th, restarts on August 1st and ends on December 22nd.

“We have almost 30 authorities to be examined and considered in the plenary session of the Federal Senate. So, we’re going to have to work a lot. A concentrated effort is called for next week. We will work intensely and go through the night in the Senate sessions and, if necessary, also in the National Congress session, to make all the deliveries that are necessary to both the Senate and Congress,” Pacheco said.

The government is still waiting on its sports betting bill which could generate up to R$5 billion in revenue next year. However opposition is working together to overturn the proposal.

Senator Jorge Seif said:

“We need to discuss this in depth. There is a disease called ludopathy, which is gaming addiction and today there are statistics on it. Many of our young people are already addicted . . . So, we need to discuss much more broadly the fundraising drive of this misgovernment, which wants to tax everything, wants to regulate everything in order to tax it.”

According to local press, opposition to the bill was initially made up of a number of senators mostly belonging to the evangelical caucus without that much influence in the senate. However due to growing delays other conservative lawmakers are joining forces against the bill amongst fears that if they fail to oppose it then they will lose the support of their electorate.