Brazil gambling legislation put to bed

The proposed gambling reform which would have seen online sports betting regulated in Brazil for the first time has expired after the country’s Congress failed to overturn a presidential veto on the bill.

President Dilma Rousseff vetoed legislation which had been passed by Congress last month, dashing hopes that a new regulatory framework was on the horizon.

It is believed the veto came after an intervention from the Ministry of Finance, which argued that it didn’t have time to regulate the new offering.

The final hope for the bill was an unlikely overturning of the veto, which would have required an absolutely majority of both the upper and lower houses of Brazil’s legislature.

But the 30-day deadline for the veto to be overridden has now passed without movement from politicians, sounding the death knell for the legislation in its current form.

“We are back at stage one and will have to wait for another bill addressing the gaming and betting industry being passed by Congress,” Neil Montgomery, founding partner of São Paulo-based law firm Montgomery & Associados, told eGaming Review.

While another bill will likely be proposed, it could now be months or years until any significant movement on opening up is made.

Alongside the veto, however, Rousseff passed a separate piece of legislation which will increase penalties for the estimated eight million Brazilian gamblers who use offshore sites, with new laws giving authorities the power to hand out fines to players ranging from £400 to £40,000 for using unlicensed sites.

Brazil is now left with a limited lottery and land-based horse racing market.