Winner for São Paulo lottery tender exceeds all expectations with R$600m bid
The consortium Aposta Vencedora, led by the Portuguese company SAV Participações, has secured the concession for the new lottery for the state of São Paulo auctioned off last Friday (November 1) at the B3, São Paulo Stock Exchange. According to Agência Estado In a heated live bidding competition, the winning offer was R$ 600 million, representing a premium of 130.15% over the minimum bid. The project includes 31 exclusive lottery outlets and more than 11,000 non-exclusive lottery sales points throughout the state of São Paulo for fifteen years. The winning company will be able to operate the service online as well.
With this concession, the Government of the State of São Paulo expects to collect R$ 3.4 billion for public coffers, which will be invested in health care. According to Governor Tarcísio de Freitas the funds will be used to build two hospitals.
“It’s an interesting model, it’s a winning model, because, in addition to the fixed grant, we become partners in the business and start to earn part of the net operating revenue,” said Tarcísio. “The more you (the consortium) perform, the more the state earns.”
The Portuguese consortium Aposta Vencedora outbid the SP Loterias Consortium, led by IGT Global Services Limited. The Aposta Vencedora Consortium will hold the lottery concession for the next 15 years.
The competition began with high premiums. The initial bid from the SP Loterias Consortium was 86.63% higher than the minimum bid of R$ 260.7 million set by the government. Aposta Vencedora started behind with a premium of 78.36%, but managed to turn the tide during the live bidding.
The auction was part of a series of auctions organized by the São Paulo government, aiming to raise R$ 20 billion by the end of the year. The concession for the São Paulo State Lottery requires the development of a compliance plan to prevent money laundering and other misconduct in gambling activities. It also includes control mechanisms, such as a self-exclusion option for users as well as other player protection measures.
In June, the Official Gazette of the State of São Paulo released Decree 68,596/2024, which sanctioned the initiation of a bidding process for the concession of public lottery services in the state. The regulation allowed for international competition to open tenders for public lottery services across several modalities: specific prediction lottery, sports prediction lottery, numerical prediction lottery, instant lottery, and passive lottery. However, fixed-odds betting was not included.
Under Brazilian legislation, the new concessionaire for the São Paulo state lottery will have the authority to offer various lottery products that are similar to those already approved and available in the market. These products can be provided through both physical locations and online platforms. However, the concessionaire is not required to offer every type of lottery service available.
The state lottery model was authorized by the Supreme Federal Court (STF) in 2020, which ruled that the federal government could not monopolize the service. In São Paulo, the system was approved in 2022 by the Legislative Assembly (Alesp) to provide new funding sources for public health and education infrastructure. The Public Services Regulatory Agency of the state (Arsesp) will be responsible for overseeing the activities of the license holder.
