Will Legalized Gambling Hurt or Help the Brazilian Economy

You make excellent points. Immediately, I thought of what casinos have done to the poor in the United States when they were legalized just about all over the country beginning around 1980. Until then, only Las Vegas had casinos which were as much about entertainment and holiday as anything else, since only those who could afford the plane ticket and hotel rooms were able to visit.
Nowadays casinos are every where, but mostly in working class areas. Their customers are mainly poor to lower middle class people who have become addicted to gambling.
I would expect the same to happen in Brazil.

We had gambling legalized after the regime change in 1994 in South Africa.
Every city or town there has a huge Casino now.

To tell you the truth , it has not made much difference or been a huge social problem except to a very small minority of people with addictive tendencies .
Also I have noticed Brazilians really do not like to bet or lose money , i've noticed they do not participate in poker games where money is bet and react really badly to the idea of losing money through gambling . I don't really think it's such a big deal.

Gambling and money games exists and are illegal. It is quite underground (or not)...in Rio, Carnaval blocks are famously sponsorised by gambling/lottery groups (should I say mafia...?). Everybody know about it and nobody does anything about it (heard about corruption?). FYI, Lottery tickets sold in the street are generally illegal but you can see that in all the country.
I believe some people want to create casinos to extract money games from the illegality, expecting that mafias/gangs will lose an important revenue and leverage on local politician (in Rio again...). I am just affraid in land in other bad hands... I never heard ever in the world that casinos were managed by very honest/transparent groups.

Coming to a major city near you soon?
Brazil Minister of Tourism Defends Proposal to Legalize Gambling | The Rio Times | Brazil News
http://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/r … -gambling/

I wonder how much this is going to cost and will there be a new Táx to support it. Just a thought. Enjoy if one has time.

I'm 100% against it. While the government stands to win by making a nice chunk from taxes, as others have mentioned, only the poor and those with gambling addictions stand to lose. Brazil has enough problems - I guarantee you that casinos will only exacerbate them. I'm from a state with Indian reservation casinos, and I once met someone who worked at a casino as a dealer. It's true: the casinos attracted weekenders looking to have some fun, but mostly, the poor and lower classes got sucked in. The dealer told me that people with gambling addictions are worse than drug addicts because they often borrow $ to finance their addictions and cause financial hardship for everyone around them. Like drug addicts, gambling junkies can lose everything: life savings, jobs, homes, family, and friends.

Also, I can totally see Brazilian casinos becoming yet another oulet for corruption and criminal activities such as money laundering....

2 Words "More Taxes". I agree that it is something that is not good for the people and it will just increase the criminality of certain states. Why not create a Amusement Park at least one could have fun. I've seen the devestation of Casino's and the aftermath for the only Winner is the Casino. I mean that's great we have a recession, lack of jobs and cut backs on services of all types and madness in the streets and We really really,really need to gamble.Someone anyone Stop this madness. I hope there is not even chance this will happen.

Actually, Brasil has gambling in the form of consortios and of course our old friend lotteries. With this foundation in place casinos are not far behind.

Gambling is a great backdoor tax system. Money is collected and no service has to be provided except to perpetuate the casinos. A perfect closed loop.

Another great plus the gambler/taxpayer has nothing to say about how the money is used as it is his "fault" if he has lost his mortgage payment.

This is a great incentive even to well meaning politicians, think of how attractive it would be to those politicians looking for a way to cash in? 

It will happen and the current crisis is a perfect pretext.

I find these two articles to be in Humor. This is crazy, yet Stranger things will happen/lol

Folha de S.Paulo - Internacional - En - Business - Government Plans to Create Company to Offer Sports Betting on the Internet - 12/07/2016
http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacio … rnet.shtml
Now here's the Krazy
Folha de S.Paulo - Internacional - En - Brazil - Brazilian Police Arrest Seven People for Match Fixing - 07/07/2016
http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacio … xing.shtml
Good Luck .

A well known sign of a failing neighborhood is the opening of liquor stores. In my humble experience, lotteries are the liquor stores of economic failure. Nothing is produced, no real job creation and sadly infinite opportunities for government "mismanagement."

One example that sticks out in my mind is where a lottery was implemented to "fund education." The reality was, with each influx of cash an equal amount was removed from the budget.  The result? the budget simply did not change only the funding source. Education suffered, the students suffered, the country by extension suffered.

Worst of all, lotteries are targeted at those who could least afford to waste their money on false hope.

OK Ex, that's the problem. What's your solution? My answer? HISTORY.

China spent an huge amount of it's capital current and future in the greatest modernization effort in history. While I am no fan of it's human rights policy, I never argue with success.

In the midst of a terrible depression, The USA initiated a huge public works program. This employed millions created real jobs both in the construction and maintenance phases. Do not discount the side effects of work created in support of these programs.

Germany's huge growth after WW2 was fueled by real deregulation of business and industry.

History is rife with examples of what works. Lotteries are about as useful as the old medical treatment known as "Bleeding."

If you guys love it so much then please just play the welcome bonus, don't send your money there, here's for example how to do it safely and don't invest any money.

So this seems like an old thread but now in 2024 -  does anyone understand what is going on with this discussion about "Bets" and them being prohibited?

I see it on the news everyday, even people getting arrested and also some influencers or even artists on social media advertising with links. Are these even related no idea.

Seeing the government discuss it pretty frequently I became curious though. What exactly is going on?

11/24/24 @rocade.  I only know what I read in the papers and online betting isn't a topic I've looked into in detail (not being a bettor), but here are the outlines as I understand them.

Brazil legalized fixed-odds sports betting in 2018, and quickly became the seventh biggest market for online betting in the world, US$4.9 Billion in 2024, bigger than Canada and approaching Italy.

This began causing concern at the Banco Central because of the size of the currency flows and their possibilities for hiding money laundering, and at the Federal Government pressure began to grow to ensure that the action was on the level.  Understandably, the Federal Government is also interested in taxing all that movement of money, and is  concerned about the competition for its own Loteria business through the Caixa Econômica Federal.  The state lotteries are even more concerned, and some are calling for a complete ban on online betting.  The evangelical churches and conservative parties are chiming in for ideological reasons.

At the end of 2023, Congress passed a law requiring online betting companies to be cleared for transparency and taxes by the Ministério da Fazenda.  They were required to register with the Ministry and provide required data by September 17 of this year.  To date 211 sites have been licensed, and new sites are being added to the list as their information is cleared.  The list appears here, and is constantly being updated:  https://www.gov.br/fazenda/pt-br/compos … e-empresas

On October 9, ANATEL began knocking unauthorized sites offline.

A new, more complete body of regulations is being prepared by Fazenda, and will become official in January.

A Congressional investigating commission has been empaneled, so more legislation can probably be expected in the new year.  Some of it is almost certain to deal with prohibiting the use of government transfer payments (e.g., Bolsa Família) for betting, and to address some of the concerns raised by the civil society groups and the states.

I was asked to invest in an online betting company 12 months ago, and although I declined (I do not gamble) I was given some information. Apparently online betting platforms could be accessed easily in Brazil, but none were based in Brazil - and so could not be taxed or controlled.

So the government invited new companies to start up and demonstrate they could operate legally and decently, with a view to licensing a couple of hundred that met the minimum requirements. Hundreds started, and, as @abthree has stated, some have already been successful with the planned deadline of January 2025.

It remains to be seen if this will be a good thing or bad for Brazil, but at least the online betting platforms will now be controlled in country and be of some benefit to Brazil's tax revenues...