Sports betting legalisation reaches Brazilian Senate

Jake Graves November 23, 2023

SiGMA news

Sports betting legalisation reaches Brazilian Senate

Sports betting and iGaming regulations in Brazil have progressed with bill 3,626/23 being successfully passed by the Economic Affairs Commission (CAE) to the Senate Plenary.

The vote was delayed by a day, eventually succeeding on Wednesday, 22nd November with support from Senator Angelo Coronel.

Headline amendments

Brazil’s CAE has approved this bill under the new amendment of the tax regulation within the legislation dropping the stipulated tax rate from 18 to 12 percent.

The tax rate of 18 percent was a point of heavy criticism when the bill was first proposed, with the reduction in this undoubtedly a strong factor in its passage.

Senate vote

The bill will now advance to the Brazilian Senate with a vote scheduled for November 28.

Any changes the Senate wish to make to the bill during this period will now require a review by the Chamber of Deputies, a body that initially approved the bill back in September of 2022.

Should the Senate Plenary approve the bill, it will undergo further scrutiny from the Chamber of Deputies before reaching President Lula da Silva and finally reaching a potential market launch.

Sports betting legislation in Brazil

Until the summer of 2022, almost all forms of chance-based gambling were considered illicit in the world’s seventh-most populous nation when an emergency provisional measure was adopted and signed by President Lula da Silva in July of that year.

This was enacted in the hopes of capitalising on the national grey market, so powerful at the time, once legalisation is complete the nation is thought to be on course to become one of the world’s largest sports betting and iGaming markets.

Eventually, the provisional measure had to be superseded with the bill being laid before the Senate Plenary today.

A bill which has seen many a roadblock including opposition in the form of senators Girão and Portinho, failed to remove iGaming from the legislation during the CAE session.

The saga has also seen unexpected additions like online casinos to the sports betting bill in September.

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