Iuri Castro, Brazil’s Undersecretary of Gambling and Commercial Promotion of the Ministry of Economy, said that his office has “a defined strategy” regarding the publication of the regulatory decree of the Sports Betting Law. His remarks came at the CGS Brazil 2022 event, as reported by BNLData.
During the opening of the fair, held in the Brazilian city of Florianópolis, Castro spoke about Law 13.576, which was approved in 2018 but whose regulation has not yet been published by the Government, and affirmed that his office is waiting for the publication of the decree by the President of the Republic.
Based on this, he indicated that the Under secretariat he presides is already working on the processes, texts, forms, and models, among other actions to build the necessary ordinances to regulate the sports betting sector.
“We already have a defined strategy, we know how to do it, we have a plan and we know it will be fulfilled when the decree is published,” Castro announced, generating a wave of optimism among the attendees, as reported by BNLData.
He also pointed out that his office is studying regulations from countries such as the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Argentina, and that they continue to “accept suggestions and ideas”.
“We are conducting a comparative evaluation. Whatever the model, processes will be needed regarding business requirements, security certification, responsible gaming, money laundering prevention, advertising, publicity, and players’ needs,” he explained.
From left to right: Javier Balbuena, Iuri Castro, Luis Gama and Georges Didier at CGS Brazil 2022.
Castro also mentioned that the Department of Technology from the Ministry of Economy turned to the Federal Data Processing Service (Serpro) to understand the needs regarding the process of control and supervision of fixed odds betting.
“In an agile way, we secured the budget, and started the work, which was divided into four modules, to receive the data from the operators, register and analyze it,” he said.
It should be noted that, since the enactment of Law 13,576 in 2018, sports betting websites and apps have been operating in Brazil, despite the lack of regulation. Meanwhile, it is set that on December 13 the law would come into force, in the absence of regulation by the Government.
Points of view
The undersecretary gave these statements in the panel ‘The importance of market governance: In-depth analysis on the importance of market governance after Law No. 13,756/2018’. Said space was moderated by Georges Didier, regional director of Latin America at GLI, and the former regulators of Uruguay, Luis Gama, and Paraguay, Javier Balbuena, who currently work at Gaming Consultores, also participated.
In his presentation, Gama referred to the debate around the bill that seeks to regulate online casino games in Uruguay and warned about inadequate regulation. “Unregulated operators want the market to be unregulated, but worse than not regulating is regulating badly. In this case, it is better not to regulate at all,” he commented.
For his part, Javier Balbuena regretted the regulatory disorder in Paraguay regarding sports betting, which allows only one operator for the whole country. “It will be necessary to modify the law in the National Congress to include more operators. There is no political will to modify the law, but little by little we will make changes,” he said.
Other panels
In the ‘IJL Responds’ panel, the president of the Brazilian Legal Gaming Institute (IJL) and editor of BNLData, Magnho José, answered questions from CGS Brazil participants about the progress of bill 442/91 and the process of regulating sports betting. The main questions concerned political issues and the impact of election results on both processes.
Magnho José, President of the Brazilian Legal Gaming Institute (IJL) and editor of BNLData
In the conference ‘Sports betting, the actual state of the industry in Brazil and forecasts’, the participants Gabriela Novello (Altenar), Luis Traversa (Betmotion), André Gelfi (Betsson Group), Thomas Carvalhes (Bob) agreed on the need to regulate sports betting as soon as possible.
Other panels were also held, such as ‘The future of betting, omnichannel and metaverse’, presented by Davi Fica from Mixer Gaming; ‘Successful Brazilian verticals in the gaming sector, such as online and digital lotteries’ with the participation of Amilton Noble (ANJL), Márcio Borges (Sorte Online) and the moderation of Daniele Costa (P4Fun).
In addition, the conference ‘Risk and fraud control: rules to protect your online commerce. Servers and Cybersecurity’, with the CEO of IPS in Brazil, Witoldo Hendrich Jr. Meanwhile, Eliana Nunes (Salsa Technology), André Alves (Control+F5), and Leo Wurman (Ocular) participated in the panel ‘Advertising and communication in the gaming sector.’
In the panel ‘Trends in sports and entertainment: eSports, sports hall marketing and brand licensing’, experts Amir Samoggi (SportsValue) and Rafael Pedreira (Destra) intervened. Finally, Camila Alves (Salsa Technology) and Natália Nogues (Control+F5) discussed the best options for entering the Brazilian market without problems and the best strategies.