"Casinos legalization would ease Santa Catarina health crisis"

Does the state government have any options to face the serious health crisis?
The suggestion, which would also apply to Brazil, is to allocate resources for the legalization of casinos. We have an alternative here in Santa Catarina, following what São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais are doing. They exploit the scratch card lotteries. Lottery companies are working on this option. Several segments are interested in scratch cards and virtual or physical lottery. Trimania, for example, already makes millions for health, such as the Bethesda Hospital in Joinville.

Why do you think that this option was not adopted to solve hospital problems?
There were doubts about legal aspects. We have now seen that the law of Santa Catarina gives legal status. We are failing to collect considerable figures with lottery collections for health and promotion of sports and social assistance. In 2016 the population allocated US$ 214 million in games of the Caixa, all of it channeled to the Union. Other data: capitalization bonds such as Trimania move in the State more than US$ 43 million.

In addition, Santa Catarina’S health system does not receive much from federal taxes. There is another impressive statistic: with illicit games, more than US$ 760 million has been traded in the state. Games without any collection. With the legalization of the casinos all this could have a portion to soften the serious crisis in health.

Does the government have any studies related to gambling legalization?
The lottery companies have already created a cooperative and we are dealing with the government in the Civil House. It is a new project that we are studying and that would be an important source to subsidize the health that has faced great difficulties in the State for a long time.

Source: GMB / Diário Catarinense