The government is preparing three awareness campaigns to alert players about online betting. The first, in October, will disclose the list of companies that may operate temporarily. The second will involve the Ministry of Health and will alert about the risks of indebtedness and health. The third, in January 2025, with the list of bets that received definitive authorization.
In addition, operators will be required to send daily reports on the profile of players, income, value, and frequency of bets.
“We will have educational campaigns that we are building both here at the Treasury, and with our regulated companies (the companies). There will be a very strong reinforcement with the joint action with the Ministry of Health for the awareness phase,” said Regis Dudena, Secretary of Prizes and Bets of the Ministry of Finance, to Globo.
The campaigns had been designed since the beginning of the reports of irregular operations and now the government has defined that they need to be implemented to ensure the transparency of the activity of sports betting and online games.
The most immediate, which will be launched still in October, will disclose the list of companies authorized to operate temporarily until December 31. This list will be of the companies that have submitted their license applications to the Secretariat of Prizes and Bets of the Ministry of Finance.
Subsequently, the government will launch a campaign in conjunction with the Ministry of Health warning about the risks of indebtedness and health, when it will highlight the importance of self-imposing limits and will alert users about the dangers of addiction to games.
In January 2025, already with the bets definitively authorized to operate, the government will disclose the list of companies that will be able to operate in Brazil. They must have the domain .bet.br and those that do not present themselves in such a way will be prohibited from offering sports betting and games.
The betting houses will also have to inform if they have a service of “influencers”, the terms of the contract, and remuneration.
The process of regulation of bets is underway in the government, which gave a deadline until August 20 for those interested to make the accreditation to have their licenses approved by the end of this year and started 2025 with the regulated operation. Requests from 113 companies that met the first deadline and another four that presented themselves later are being analyzed.
The deadline for granting authorization ends at the end of this year, but the Ministry of Finance anticipated and published an ordinance this Tuesday to disclose the list of companies considered legal. Those not on this list will be prohibited from providing the service from October 1.
According to the secretary, the government anticipated because it identified in the regulation process a group of companies that uses bets to exploit bettors and commit crimes.
“We began to see a detachment between two groups: a group of betting companies that want to operate in Brazil legally and another group that began to use betting to commit fraud, to exploit bettors and even to commit crimes. The ordinance tries to separate from the outset who these companies are. This was aligned with the president of the Republic,” he said.
In the coming days, the companies that requested authorization will have to inform if they operate with brands and on which websites. From January, they will have to use the domain bet.br.
The secretary admitted that the deadline for identifying illegal companies is short, but that the task will be executed in conjunction with the security forces, such as the Federal Police and the National Telecommunications Agency. The plan provides for the use of intelligence and all available technology tools.
“Today we already have a list of some hundreds of companies that provide (bets). We will make a comparison with the list of those that will be considered authorized. We will ask for the takedown of those not on the list,” explained the secretary.
He mentioned that suspected cases of crime will be passed on to the competent authorities and that it is up to the regulatory body to demand compliance with the rules and ensure that the bettor does not have health and indebtedness problems due to the games.
“We do not control a priori whether the person should or should not play. We do control, yes, so that given the psychological and financial characteristics, they do not come to have health and indebtedness problems,” highlighted Dudena, adding that for this, a more detailed profile of the bettors will be required from January.
For the Treasury, the regulation that is being built is robust and has the potential to protect consumers. However, the secretary recognizes that there are challenges:
“We are clear that this will bring challenges, it is not trivial to make a regulation of mechanisms that occur on the internet.”
The regulation process involved a total of 10 normative acts. An ordinance edited at the end of July, for example, establishes rules for responsible gaming. For example, the use of credit cards is prohibited, although this only applies from January.
Another rule of the ordinance imposes self-regulation on operators. The sites need to offer means for bettors to control themselves, in addition to clarifying that betting is not a means for enrichment or income supplement.
“The site has to monitor this bettor in all his activities. If it is a bettor who has an income profile not compatible with the bets, at first he will be forced to make an alert, saying that his bet has detached from his profile. If he insists, he will have to impose a mandatory pause and at the limit, will be able to ban the bettor,” explained the secretary.
All this, he said, will have to be reported to the government. The Treasury seeks to convey the message that online betting should be seen only as entertainment. In this type of game, most bettors lose and those who really win are the house, said an interlocutor.
“The duty of the State is to ensure that the person does not get sick, to ensure that the person does not get into debt. When we regulate an entertainment activity, we want the person to be able to have fun and leave safe and sound. What we are doing is ensuring that those who provide the service are authorized, monitored, supervised, and, if they fail to comply, will be punished” he stated.
On the other hand, the regulation of bets will increase the federal government's revenue. The process of authorizing operators will be continuous. That is, from January any company can apply to the Treasury to provide the service.
Source: GMB / O Globo
