Together with Altair Mendanha, Lottery Area Coordinator, we were invited to Miami to attend Smart Tech 2018, an event organized by the Public Gaming Research Institute & The Florida Lottery. This time and unlike other fairs, the Ministry of Finance did not participate in a lecture or panel. We "Just" listened to learn and seek knowledge about the subject.
In particular, I had never been to such a seminar, and I liked it a lot, especially for dealing specifically with lotteries, which is the only legalized betting game in Brazil; being, therefore, the subject with which I really deal with day-to-day in the Ministry of the Treasury.
I drew several conclusions about the seminar. The main one is that, in Brazil, the lotteries sector is very far from the "technological frontier". We are very far from what is innovative or modern in lotteries, in any of the existing lottery modalities (lottery numbers / or prognostics sports).
There is a long way to approach this border; it is not only about payout misalignment, it is also about distribution and modern products. The distance is enormous.
For example, in the US they discuss how to improve internet sales to reach the younger audience, especially. Here, it is not even possible to make a lottery bet virtually. The Brazilian consumer is faced with a system of lotteries that is far behind, in relation to what happens in the developed world.
In the short term, the expected improvement in the lotteries sector depends mainly on the entry of the new concessionaire into the Brazilian market, since the implementation of Lotex, and the alignment of CAIXA payouts to what is practiced in developed countries.
With these two actions, the Ministry of Finance hopes to establish a competitive duopoly in the lotteries sector, leading this sector to modernization and innovation, generating jobs, increasing income and leveraging the sector's taxable fiscal capacity, in order to services provided by the social beneficiaries of lotteries (public safety, social security, etc.).
Alexandre Manoel da Silva
Undersecretary of Fiscal Governance and Lottery Regulation of Brazilian Ministry of Finance
