The Minister of Finance highlighted the official decision to start banning, from October, betting companies that have not applied for authorization to operate.
Brazil.- The Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, stated that the government began actions to regulate betting. According to Haddad, the idea is to "address the matter with due caution". In a press conference, the head of the department that will closely monitor the application of Law 14.790, stated that the "distance between entertainment and addiction is thin" and that, therefore, government actions will be advanced in order to keep everything under control.
According to the minister, advertising and sponsorship will also be regulated. "All this will go through a very rigorous analysis," he said. According to Haddad, the issue of betting has become a "social problem". The official also made an analogy referring to the problem as a "pandemic" and spoke about the psychological dependency caused by gambling and highlighted that the government is looking for solutions to the problem.
On the other hand, he stated that the regulation is not related to tax collection, but to a public health issue.
Yesterday, September 17, the Ministry of Finance published a decree that establishes that it will suspend, from October, those betting companies that have not yet requested authorization to operate. "It has nothing to do with fundraising. This has to do with the pandemic that is occurring in the country and that we have to start facing, which is this issue of psychological dependency on games," explained the official and added: "We are seeing the pressing need to start putting order in this and collaborating with the Ministry of Health, there are many reports of health problems."
According to the minister, the ministry is working on the regularization of the sector, arguing that the problem was not addressed by the previous government. According to him, the process foresees the control of advertising and sponsorships, in addition to prohibiting the use of credit cards or other forms of indebtedness in online games. "We have to safeguard families, we will also ask for the support of civil society to face this problem, our goal here is to address this issue with due caution," he said.
The law that regulates these bets was approved by Congress at the end of last year, but depends on another series of measures for its full implementation. The suspension of betting houses that did not request authorization to operate was a way to anticipate the total filter of companies qualified and authorized to operate, explained in a note the Secretary of Prizes and Betting of the Ministry of Finance, Regis Dudena.
