The Brazilian gambling industry is issuing a new round of warnings against the government's latest Novo Desenrola Brasil debt restructuring plan. IBJR Director and Co-founder Andre Gelfi, in an exclusive interview, stated that preventing beneficiaries of the plan from accessing licensed gambling platforms is a misguided decision—Brazilians will not stop gambling, but will instead move from regulated platforms to the underground gambling market, which has already reached 40 billion reais (approximately 8 billion USD). He specifically pointed out that this risk is being dramatically amplified by the upcoming World Cup. During the event, the volume of sports betting naturally spikes, and if licensed channels are blocked, the flow of funds to illegal platforms could lead to a national tax loss of up to 10.8 billion reais (approximately 2.16 billion USD).
Household total consumption accounts for only 0.46%, being made a scapegoat
Gelfi directly targeted the data previously released by the Brazilian National Confederation of Commerce—this organization claimed that gambling companies have withdrawn nearly 144 billion reais from the market. He sharply criticized this as a severe methodological error, equating gambling turnover with funds disappearing from the retail sector, completely contradicting the data from the official lottery and gambling secretariat. Research by LCA Economic Consulting shows that gambling accounts for only 0.46% of Brazilian household total expenditure, much lower than streaming subscriptions, mobile consumption, or even alcohol spending, while the extremely high interest rates on credit card revolving credit are the real culprits of the debt problem.
Regarding the increasingly intense political attacks surrounding the gambling industry, Gelfi offered a rather sober judgment: in the electoral process, the topic of gambling is like a gold mine for political populism—candidates can easily demonstrate their concern for morality and public decency by attacking gambling, without providing any real solutions to the debt issue. IBJR has formally notified the Brazilian National Confederation of Commerce, demanding transparency in the complete database behind the research.
PASA official website continues to track the latest dynamics of Brazilian gambling market regulation and industry policy games, noting that IBJR and ANJL, two major industry associations, are constructing the same set of quantitative defenses from different angles—using data to prove that gambling is not the root cause of the Brazilian family debt crisis, and shifting the focus of policy debate from moral criticism to a systematic attack on the illegal market.
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This article is from "PASA-Global iGaming Leaders" gambling industry news channel: https://t.me/pasa_news
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