New Brazil legislation to ban sports betting and egaming
Industry backing a rival bill already in the Senate which would legalise online wagering
Brazil’s gambling commission has recommended that online gaming and all forms of sports betting be prohibited in a bill set to be introduced in the country’s Congress.
The Comiss??o do Marco Regulat?rio dos Jogos no Brasil was formed last October and tasked with creating a single bill out of the 14 different pieces of gaming legislation introduced over the last 25 years.
However its subsequent report, released last week, would prohibit online gaming, and sports betting in general, except sports-related federal lotteries.
The commission must now vote and approve the report, which is expected to happen sometime in July. It will then be introduced into the lower house of Brazil’s Congress.
However the pro-gaming lobby will be hoping a separate bill – PLS 186/2014, which is currently awaiting a vote in the upper house of Congress – will be voted on first, since it would legalise online gaming.
Brazilian gaming consultant Daniel Xavier told EGR: “At the present moment no one knows which one will be voted on first”.
The political environment in the country is generally considered to be pro-gambling, given a national debt of around $56bn and the presence of a stand-in president who is reputed to have a gaming background.
Xavier said last month that the prospects for online gambling legalisation had never been so good.