Lawmaker: Time to end decades of delay
Brazil gaming legislation, which has been in the pipeline in some form for 25 years, was sent back from the Senate to the lower house for further debate last year, and will return to the Senate until April, according to multiple news reports. The current bill was drafted by Senator Ciro Nogueira in 2014.
Last November the government’s Special Committee for National Development approved a new version of legislation written by Senator Ciro Nogueira in 2014. Committee Chairman Senator Fernando Bezerra Coelho sent the revised draft to the Senate. Senator Magno Malta then asked the House Committee on Constitution, Justice and Citizenship for more debate, and the bill went back to the House.
Gaming opponent Deputy Luiz Carlos Hauly says legalizing casinos and other forms of gambling would have serious consequences. “Compulsive gambling is as harmful to humans as drugs and alcohol,” he said.
Deputy Gilberto Nascimento also opposes the bill, and says Brazil—now contending with its worst recession in decades—should find growth industries beyond gaming. And Deputy Roberto de Lucena says most people in Brazil do not support legal gaming.
But Deputy Joao Carlos Bacelar Batista said it’s time to approve the bill, which has been under discussion on and off for some 25 years. “This is not the time to say that we will not discuss it or that we need to discuss it further. That has passed. We need to decide now. There has been a monumental delay in making a decision on this.
“Gaming is necessary for Brazil, it will generate wealth,” Batista insisted. “The decision cannot be based on anyone’s moral convictions. No group has the right to impose its values on the other group.”
Deputy Herculano Passos, chairman of the Tourism Committee in Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies, pointed out that gaming is already prevalent in the country, yet the government derives no economic benefit from the unregulated industry.
