Lula gathers his ministers over the future of online betting
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's offensive against online gambling gained a new chapter when the Brazilian president moved the discussion to the heart of his Government. Outside the official agenda, and with a notice that reached several ministers only that same morning, the leader summoned them to the Alvorada Palace to put on the table what to do with a sector he himself regulated and now questions without nuance.
The summons did not come as a surprise. Days earlier, Lula had again said publicly that betting platforms should justify their permanence in the country with a social reason and that, failing to do so, it would be right to end the activity, an argument he himself admitted would clash with the so-called betting caucus within Congress. The meeting was, in effect, the internal translation of that stance.
What drew attention was the weight of those present. Alongside vice-president Geraldo Alckmin sat the heads of Finance, Dario Durigan, of Institutional Relations, José Guimarães, of Justice and Public Security, Wellington César Lima e Silva, of Planning and Budget, Bruno Moretti, of the General Secretariat of the Presidency, Guilherme Boulos, of the Civil House, Miriam Belchior, and of Social Communication, Sidônio Palmeira. That the economic, judicial, budgetary and political coordination areas sat at the same table made clear that the Government does not approach the issue as a merely fiscal matter. The agenda, moreover, did not end with betting: the discussion over the taxation of low-value international purchases, the so-called blusinhas tax, also slipped in.
The move rests on a battery of measures the ruling party has been accumulating to contain the activity's effects, among them the advertising tightening Finance ordered in July, with mandatory warnings about the risks of betting in campaigns. And it has an electoral backdrop hard to disguise: as the October presidential election approaches, Lula sharpened his rhetoric against the sector and anticipated he will carry it as a banner into his re-election bid.
Despite the display, the summit ended without announcements. There was no concrete measure on the table, no changes to the regulatory framework, no calendar to move toward an eventual prohibition, so the houses keep operating under the current rules. The real decision, in any case, does not depend on the Alvorada Palace: any substantive reform will have to pass through Congress, where defenders of the regulated market have the strength to resist, and that will be the terrain where the sector's future is truly played out.
Tags: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Ministerial meeting on gambling, Alvorada Palace, Online gambling in Brazil