Brazil’s licensed gambling sector is firing back at President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva after his comments suggesting a ban on online betting in the country. That came in a speech he made on International Women’s Day, during which Lula pointed out that a lot of Brazilian families are getting burned by problem gambling. He went on to say that betting on your phone is just a recipe for disaster — people can end up using money that should be going on household stuff to try and get lucky.

Lula was calling on the government, Congress, and the judiciary to team up and shut down what he called “digital casinos” once and for all. But the industry is already pushing back. Industry reps and lawyers say that banning online betting now would be a huge mistake — Brazil just sorted out the regulatory side of things and a ban would undo all that.

Here are some of the key things the industry is fighting on:

  • The risk of the black market booming: if the legal operators get shut down, people may just go to unregulated sites offshore instead.
  • The regulated sector is already subject to strict requirements — operators must go through a complex licensing process and then comply with numerous rules, including responsible gambling measures, KYC procedures, and ongoing regulatory oversight.
  • The high cost of entering the market — operators must pay a significant licence fee and then cover substantial taxes on top of that.
  • The fact that online betting was only recently legalised — that was just back in January of this year with Law No. 14,790/2023.

The lawyers are also saying that Lula’s proposal is a whole lot harder to do than it sounds.  It would require going through the full legislative process again and gaining broad political support within the government.

For now, most people think a full-blown ban is off the table, but Lula’s comments have got a lot of people worried — especially the investors and companies working in Brazil’s brand new online betting market.

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