The Spiel – By Ricki Chavez-Munoz
Rep. João Carlos Barcelar has cried foul at attempts to push what they are calling in Brazil “Lei Sheldon Adelson” as the default gambling legislation mode for casinos for Latin America’s largest economy,
Now the American colloquialism is a closing of the doors to any such thing. In the case of Rep. Barcelar, he is in total opposition to casino legislation in Brazil that would only enable gambling in multibillion dollar Integrated Resorts, as the Las Vegas Sands ex-president proposed to the Brazilian government during his visits to the country when he was alive.
“There is a minority, right now, defending a law called in the House of Representatives, the ‘Lei Sheldon Adelson,’ which only allows the legalization of casinos in integrated resorts. We’re exactly against this. I have noticed that there is a group in Congress wanting to regulate only three casinos and hand over the monopoly on gambling in Brazil to investors in the United States,” denounced Rep. Barcelar.
“There is no way of legalizing only casinos and excluding the genuinely popular Brazilian lotto game, jogo do bicho making it illegal (when new gaming legislation is approved in the country). Either we legalize gambling, or we will continue enabling more corruption,” explained Barcelar who is member of the parliamentary front for creating the gambling Regulatory Framework to regulate all gambling segments currently in operation in Brazil
The illegal popular street lotto jogo do bicho was outlawed in 1947 along with casinos, but unlike these, the animal lotto game is played throughout the country with impunity and in the past has brought corruption charges to presidents, judges, legislators, etc. “I mean, they want to push the local unregulated gambling market into criminal hands, which would be totally absurd,” added Rep. Barcelar.
For Barcelar, the claim from some of the religious lobbies in Congress that gambling legislation would add to the crime rate is hypocritical. He states, “Hypocrisy is an obstacle in gambling legalization in this country, where people firstly allow the official lotto game, the Mega-Sena, offering a prize of 200 million reais; and secondly jogo do bicho, with 300,000 installed outlets, with open internet service and bets of 3 billion reais in online gaming every year. So, to say that there is no gambling in Brazil is hypocritical. Apart from all this, approximately 300,000 Brazilians leave Brazil each year to gamble in casinos in Uruguay, Argentina, Portugal, and Las Vegas. When former President Dutra made the decision to ban gambling in 1946, Brazil stopped collecting taxes and creating legal work. Gambling was banned, but it never ceased to exist. The gambling industry is a very rich industry.”
As one of the countries worse affected by the Covid-19 crisis, Brazil is in need of revenue to support the lowest paid and millions of unemployed. Barcelar makes a compelling claim: “This is a time of economic crisis. Gambling regulation could inject up to R$ 60 billion into the country’s economy each year. A third of that amount would enter the public coffers. In other words, the government would raise $20 billion in tax revenue. And this would not be the only advantage – the legalization of all forms of gambling would also generate more than 650,000 direct jobs, through the formalization of 450,000 jogo do bicho workers and the creation of at least 200,000 new jobs in the other gambling modalities. In addition, some 500,000 indirect jobs would be added as part of the gambling production chain. We’re losing money. These billions could be invested in education, health and public safety. In addition to taxes, legalization increases tourism. We can’t close our eyes to all this.”
However, in the midst of the pros and cons of gambling legislation in Brazil, approval could be closer than expected as the Supreme Federal Court must decide next month on the matter of gambling as a criminal activity.
As one of Brazil’s highest authorities on gambling legislation, Rep. Barcelar said: “The Supreme Court must issue its ruling on April 7 on the merit of the Extraordinary Appeal case(RE 966.177) upon non-acceptance (of gambling as a misdemeanour) by the Federal Constitution of the Criminal Misdemeanors Act. This can decriminalize gambling in the country. That is to say, if the Supreme Court understands that the law prohibiting gambling is found to be inconsistent with the Federal Constitution, all gambling will be declared legal and without the need for any new regulations.”
In relation to the above, if Congress sees the possibility of the Supreme Court deciding in favour of gambling, it could put pressure on MPs to decide on the issue in advance of April 7th.
The Supreme Federal Court decision is key to Barcelar’s regulation stance to open gambling to everyone, and he emphasized: “It is unacceptable to open Brazil’s doors to international investors and excluding Brazilian investors, who are the local counterpart. From there on, we can formalize about 700,000 jobs.”
