The CPI-FUTE, the Parliamentary Commission that investigates cases of match-fixing in sports betting, met with government officials, including José Manssur, special advisor to the Brazilian Ministry of Finance, to discuss the regulation and taxation of sports betting.
In this meeting, Manssur announced that in the next few days, the Executive Branch will send a provisional measure and a bill to Congress with the purpose of regulating the activities of foreign sports betting sites operating in the country.
The bill includes the creation of a National Secretariat of Games and Lotteries, which will be in charge of regulating not only fixed odds betting (as is the case of sports websites) but the totality of games and lotteries of the federal government, as reported by the Chamber of Deputies News Agency.
“We are going to send [the proposals] to the CPI so that it can contribute from the conclusions that can be drawn here,” said Manssur, at the public hearing proposed by Congressman Aureo Ribeiro (Solidariedade-RJ) to discuss the legality, taxation, and regulation of sports betting.
He also said that the Executive should, through ordinances, establish specific rules for the issue investigated by the CPI: financial fraud involving gambling sites based abroad.
According to Mansur, the government should require that companies operating betting sites be headquartered in Brazil, have a minimum share capital, and employ a certain number of Brazilians. A subsidy amount will also be required for accreditation purposes.
Match manipulation
In response to Congressman Ribeiro, the representative of the executive affirmed that the manipulation of results in soccer matches will be tackled with the use of monitoring systems that will allow real-time control of the volume of bets received by all accredited operators in the country.
“A bet, for example, of BRL 1 million (more than $200,000) on a corner kick, will turn on a yellow signal within the Ministry of Finance and, based on the monitoring of the standard behavior of athletes, we will be able to determine that companies remove that game from the betting card,” Manssur explained.
According to the regulation, the amounts collected from betting must be allocated as follows: 0.82% for the education area, 2.55% for the National Public Safety Fund, 1.63% for clubs for transferring brands to betting websites, 10% for social security and 1% for the Ministry of Sports.
“Every day that Brazil does not regulate this matter, it loses BRL 10 million (more than $2 million),” the Ministry of Finance official emphasized.
Other issues addressed at the meeting were responsible gambling and compulsive gambling. “Gambling is not a way of life. The idea of social climbing through gambling is not a message that the government regards as correct”, added Manssur.
Valdemir de Sousa
For his part, Valdemir de Sousa, Deputy Director of the Conduct Supervision Department of the Central Bank of Brazil, stated that the payment flow of companies based abroad is carried out through foreign exchange operations.
“It is not up to us to deal with the regulation of betting, but it is up to us to deal with payment flows. This is regulated by Bacen and has its own code. From the Central Bank’s point of view, everything is perfectly within the exchange regulation,” he said.
However, he indicated that the bank had to monitor some movements made in betting after verifying an ” alarming” increase in the volume of funds moved: around BRL 8 billion ($1.647 billion) between January and June of this year.
Sousa also showed his support for regulation as a way to improve the control of suspicious operations. “I think we would benefit in two aspects: both in the improvement of inspection conditions and in the reduction of the risk of using games for money laundering and fraud, as well as in the improved treatment of clients,” he commented.
