Brazil’s gambling operators express surprise at minister’s criticism of newly regulated sector
Minister of finance Fernando Haddad said he would be in favour of banning online gambling – just six months after regulation came into force.
Brazil.- Operators have expressed surprise and concern following an interview in which Brazil’s minister of finance, Fernando Haddad, severely criticised the country’s regulation of online gambling. Speaking to ICL Notícias, the minister came out against online gambling despite the ministry’s stewardship of the launch of a regulated market at the start of this year.
“If it were up to me, I’d hit the stop button. No amount of tax revenue justifies the situation we’ve landed in,” Haddad said, suggesting that Congress should reconsider legislation. The comments were particularly surprising considering Haddad’s involvement in the launch of the market. The Ministry of Finance has oversight of the new national gambling regulator, the SPA, which is responsible for licensing and overseeing compliance in the market.
As reported by Focus Gaming News Brasil, Representatives of the gaming industry have criticised the interview. The Associação Nacional de Jogos e Loterias (ANJL) published a note expressing dismay at Haddad’s statements. According to ANJL, the minister used terms considered defamatory, such as calling the game industry in Brazil “disgrace.”
It argued that problems cited by Haddad were related to illegal platforms, not regulated operators, and said that the clandestine market continued to function “due to the technical inability of the public power to block them.”
The group also said it had no opposition to some of Haddad’s suggestions. It said: “On the proposal that gambling should be treated as a public health issue, the association agrees and has expressed this meaning several times. It is necessary to clarify, however, that without tax payments from legalised gambling operators, there would be no allocation of part of these resources to health.”
It added: “It is also essential to clarify that cases of vice are rare in the regulated market. The problem of dependence on games is more related to illegal sites, which do not adopt any mechanism to protect bettors.”
Representatives of the gaming sector also argued that the proposal to prohibit gambling advertising, which is currently in process in the National Congress, could be prejudicial, favouring the blackmarket.
“Without advertising done in a responsible way, bettors will not know how to distinguish between legal bets and illegal betting, and they will be at the mercy of of influencers,” tbe ANJL said.
“The association reaffirms the industry’s commitment to building a safe and regulated environment, so that games are viewed by the entire population as just another form of entertainment and not investment or source of income. ANJL credits that the Brazilian school will not go backwards in relation to We need to make two advances that we have made now and focus on what really matters: the fight against the illegal market,” it concluded.
