“A casino in every kitchen”: the explosion of online betting is causing panic in Brazil

“I lost everything, I sold my TV, my washing machine, everything I had at home”: Fernanda, a 34-year-old cleaning lady, bet “all her salary” on a betting site.

This resident of Rio de Janeiro, whose first name has been changed to preserve her anonymity, is far from being an isolated case in Brazil: Finance Minister Fernando Haddad speaks of a “pandemic”.

In an emergency, the public authorities are seeking to regulate an activity which has operated practically without safeguards since 2018.

Online betting “will empty Brazilians’ fridges”, warned Joao Pedro Nascimento, president of the CVM, the stock market authority of Latin America’s largest economy.

“Bets” (paris, in English), as sites that offer betting on sporting events, but also on games like Fortune Tiger or Aviator, which Fernanda played, are known in Brazil, have around 24 million followers in this country of 212 million inhabitants, according to the Central Bank.

They sponsor most of the major football clubs there and flood TV and social networks with advertisements with stars like the footballer Vinicius.

The press is making headlines about alleged money laundering scandals involving illegal sites.

– “Televised harassment” –

A recent study by the Central Bank had the effect of a bombshell.

It revealed that five million beneficiaries of Bolsa Familia, the allowance paid to the poorest families, made transfers totaling three billion reais (around 500 million euros) to betting sites in August.

This represents a quarter of beneficiaries, and almost a fifth of payments from the government’s flagship social program this month.

“Many poor people get into debt by trying to make money through betting. We will have to regulate, otherwise we will soon have a casino in the kitchen of every home,” left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula declared at the end of September da Silva.

Casinos and other gambling have been banned in Brazil since 1941. But in 2018 a law authorized the operation of online betting sites, provided that the activity is regulated – and subject to taxation – subsequently.

But these regulations – which include, for example, the ban on playing for minors – will only come into force on January 1.

In the meantime, several hundred “bets” operate without rules, without paying taxes, and a large number of them are based abroad, notably in tax havens.

A first skimming took place last week, with the announcement of a list of more than 200 sites which have committed to submitting to regulation in 2025. Access to around 2,000 non-compliant sites must be blocked from from Friday October 11.

Minister Haddad also intends to put an end to the advertising of “bets”, imposing the same restrictions on them as on tobacco or alcoholic beverages, to put an end to “television harassment”.

– “Explosion” –

For Hermano Tavares, coordinator of a treatment program for compulsive gamblers at the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of Sao Paulo Hospital (USP), regulation must focus on the mental health of users.

“What the State can gain in tax revenue, it can lose by overloading the health system,” he warns.

The number of patients in his program has increased significantly since 2018, but he has especially noticed “an explosion” from the 2022 Football World Cup, with patients “much younger than before, especially those in their thirties”.

“Some people suffer from anxiety or depression disorders which can encourage” compulsive gambling, explains Anna Lucia King, founder of the Delete Institute, where Fernanda has been treated for several weeks, on the campus of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).

“It’s one of the most dangerous addictions, after crack,” says André Rolim, a 39-year-old former compulsive gambler.

Coming from a wealthy family in Fortaleza (north-east), this trained engineer found himself riddled with debt and said he had “suicidal thoughts”, before undergoing long treatment.

The National Association of Games and Lotteries (ANJL), which represents certain large betting sites, affirms in a press release sent to AFP that “compulsion problems linked to online betting only reach a small part of the total of players (…), of the order of 1 to 1.5%”.

She nevertheless recognizes that these cases “are extremely harmful for punters and those around them” and says “she is in discussions with NGOs who work in the psychological support and treatment of compulsive gamblers, with a view to partnerships aimed at prevention” .

Fernanda saw her sister “rip the phone out of her hands” and confiscate it so that she would stop playing: “Without my family, I would never have gotten through it.”

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