The beginning of the regulated betting market also marks increased oversight by the Ministry of Finance over bettors and companies. The rules took effect on the 1st, and the department responsible for monitoring the category in Brazil has already begun receiving user data. In the coming days, the agency should also start monitoring the financial flow of betting houses and players.
With control of financial operations, the Treasury will monitor transactions in search of identifying suspicious activities. The regulation of so-called "responsible gaming" also requires that bets cross-reference betting data with players' income to prevent over-indebtedness and addiction, as well as other social problems.
For this, bets need to provide the possibility of adopting betting limits based on elapsed time, financial loss, deposited amount, or number of bets and create alerts and temporary account blocks.
The information from the bets will be continuously passed on to the government through the Betting Management System (Sigap). Given the volume of data, however, at this beginning, the transfer is occurring in a staggered manner.
“We started receiving the databases of registered bettors. From this, in the next few days, we will begin to receive the financial movements associated with each of these bettors,” said Secretary of Prizes and Bets, Régis Dudena.
The migration of bettors to the regulated market is not automatic; it depends on the player's authorization, who must register anew on the platform, including facial recognition and a checking account for financial transactions.
Bettors who do not wish to participate will be able to withdraw their funds from the old sites. All authorized betting houses are domiciled in the country and can now only operate with the domain bet.br.
“By the middle of the month, we might already know roughly how many bettors we have, how much they have been betting daily, how much they have been depositing daily, how much they have won, and how much they have lost,” estimated Dudena.
Initial List
In total, the Treasury has already granted definitive authorization to 14 companies. Each authorization may contain up to three brands, with a new grant required to operate another set of up to three brands. Another 52 companies have obtained authorizations on a provisional basis.
These temporary authorizations were granted to companies that have already met the requirements, including the payment of the grant of R$ 30 million, but have pending issues that can be corrected, such as documents related to system certification. Companies with provisional authorizations have a period of 30 days, extendable by another 30, to deliver the mandatory technical certificates.
The companies on this initial list are those that submitted their applications by August 20, 2024. Applications made after this date remain under review and must be processed within 150 days from the submission of the initial documentation.
“We have not only not identified anything about the past, but it also cannot slip at any moment in the future. Any deviation can be the target of a sanctioning process, which can even lead to the revocation of the authorization,” warned Dudena.
For companies that requested authorization and did not meet the requirements, there was a denial, against which an administrative appeal is possible.
Betting houses that are not on the Treasury's list will not be able to operate nationally. States can accredit bets with operation limited to their territories, including in terms of advertising or sponsorship.
Combating Irregularities
Since October, the Ministry of Finance, with the help of the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel), has been taking down sites considered illegal to operate in the transition phase, which lasted until the end of last year. This action will continue, but the secretary states that this is not enough.
To prevent the operation of unauthorized companies, Dudena states that an important step will be the “financial strangulation” of the companies. The law regulating the fixed-quota betting market prohibits financial and payment institutions from processing transfers from unauthorized bets.
There are discussions with financial sector associations to help institutions develop a methodology to identify companies. Banks and other institutions authorized by the Central Bank are already required to "know their customers" and have mechanisms for this.
In addition, the financial movements of bets have a specific pattern. Typically, they are company accounts that receive scattered amounts from various CPFs, part of which is returned and the rest goes to a currency exchange bank, to be sent abroad, as many operate in tax havens.
“The site will be taken down all the time. The financial institutions that process your money will start to impose restrictions. When it manages to centralize and send to a currency exchange bank, if we can block the Pix, the money also does not arrive. Then it starts to be very expensive to continue operating,” said Dudena.
Another way to surround illegal bets is via social networks. In partnership with one of the organizations in the sector, the secretariat shared the list of authorized companies to prevent advertising of illegal betting houses.
But a mechanism is also being considered for media companies to be able to monitor bets, which should also apply to physical advertising.
Dudena also recalls that, with the existence of a regulated market, it becomes less attractive for players to bet on illegal platforms, since there is no guarantee that the system is responsible or that the prize will be paid.
Report
With the data from the bets in hand, the secretariat intends to publish a report with the main characteristics of the betting market later this year. So far, there are only estimates about the number of players and the amounts moved, like the technical note published by the Central Bank last year, which was highly contested.
In the study, the BC estimated that the gross transfers of Brazilians via Pix to betting houses amounted to around R$ 20 billion monthly between January and August 2024.
However, the publication by the Treasury is expected to take at least a semester. Initially, at the beginning of the year, the sports calendar, the focus of the bets, is weak. Moreover, the secretary explained that it is necessary to process the information to have greater security for publication.
“In the case of online games, they are already active, so there will already be a bit more clarity, but to really understand the dimensioning of the market, in terms of the number of bettors and financial volumes, we will need a few months,” said.
According to Dudena, new regulatory measures will also be evaluated depending on the analysis of the success or not of the first rules, especially in combating over-indebtedness and addiction to gambling. In addition to the obligation to register with facial recognition, bets paid with credit cards, entry bonuses, and games for children and adolescents are prohibited, for example.
Source: O Globo
