The Brazilian Secretariat of Evaluation, Planning, Energy & Lottery (SECAP) has published the rules that will govern sports betting in the country, which the Ministry of the Economy will oversee as regulator.
Those operators already doing business in Brazil will be given a deadline, believed to be six months from now, by which to comply with all new regulations.
Under the proposed new rules, licences will last five years and there will be no limit to the number of licences that may be issued, but all operators will be required to pay a licence fee of R$22.2m (US$4.4m). Each operator must also have a Brazilian subsidiary company and demonstrate “sufficient capital and economic and financial capacity” to operate.
Licenced operators will be allowed to offer bets on traditional sports and esports, as long as the players involved are not exclusively minors. A broad spectrum of responsible gambling and customer educational requirements are also included in the Bill, and these also cover all marketing and promotional messaging, plus a requirement to have a contractual relationship with an international integrity monitoring body, such as the International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA).
An experimental regulatory regime will be provided to selected operators, allowing early launch, prior to the full system being established.
Brazilian President Bolsonaro is scheduled to sign the new regulations into law on May 10th, and they will come into force 90 days later so, theoretically, August 8th this year.
In terms of taxation, operators will pay based on a revenue-based system, the rates for which are not mentioned in the new regulations.
