This week should be decisive for the gaming industry in Brazil. During the last days the president of Chamber of Deputies, Rodrigo Maia, has made statements defending the approval of the project in the House, noting that allowing the activity is positive for the country. "I think it's good for many comercial areas in Brazil including, of course, tourism." According to Maia, "we are studying if we have the conditions to schedule (vote) and to make a text that actually defends also the activity, and not just intalling machines through the whole country." For him, there is more chance of approval for a project that limits the opening of casinos only in regions of high tourist potential.
Maia has been affirming since the beginning of November, when he received the visit of governors who pressured him to vote on the ongoing project in the House, that the project would be voted this year in the Chamber. As in the CCJ of the Senate, the bill reported by Senator Benedito de Lira has already had two delays, Maia can go ahead and approve the urgency to vote, which may happen before Lira’s report is approved.
Because the House bill could be sliced to regulate only casinos at integrated resorts, advocates of approving all gaming modalities could try to bar the vote until they persuaded Maia to stick to the original bill, which provides for the regulation of all activities, such as bingos, sports betting and jogo do bicho.
From the point of view of the activity as a whole, the Senate project is broader and can regulate all types of games, which would be more beneficial for Brazil in terms of tax collection and generation of jobs.
As there are only a few days left before the parliamentary recess, the House of Representatives and the Senate are expected to address the issue and make some decisions about which project will take precedence over the other. The house that votes first must send the project to the other, where it will receive the proposal as an amendment. It will be up to the House or the Senate, the one to vote first on its project, to make the final decision on the proposal for the approval of the law.
It seems that Rodrigo Maia can take the lead, because if he can include in the agenda this week the request for urgency to vote in PL 442/1991, he can take to plenary before the Senate a project for the gaming industry. Although Senator Benedito de Lira's report on PLS 186/2014 is approved in the CCJ of the Senate, it would have to be taken to plenary and the agenda is increasingly tight.
Source: GMB
