I wrote an article three years ago about gambling in Brazil entitled “Gambling in Brazil and the cuckhold couch.” My perspective was comparable to that of the husband betrayed by his wife on the sofa in the living room with his neighbor and who, to avoid further betrayals, threw the sofa away. My argument is against the idea that gambling is going to inaugurate a phase of violent tax evasion, as if the IRS did not exist to curb exactly that. I do not accept, very personally, the argument that being unable to inspect casinos, they must be banned. Flabby chatter to put cattle to sleep.
The legislature has been sitting on a bill that regulates gambling since 1991. It has been a glorious 29 years in which the debate was the least present of democratic elements in the Brazilian national congress. It is as if there were no illegal gambling, as if they did not feed the monster of mafia violence in Rio, as if the bingos did not live in the shadow of reality, and finally, as if society did not participate in this fierce criminal collusion by buying a R$ 5 cards on clandestine bingos or “putting” our R$ $ 1 coins on the eagle or deer. We are all with compromised hands, painted with the blue ink of illegal bingo stamps or cards.
Between legalizing what should already be legal and distributing licenses through a federation pact that is at least inefficient, the legislature and Caixa Econômica Federal (executive branch of gambling) should look at the sector in Brazil as investors look. These possible future owners / investors in casinos or bingos look primarily at an acronym called GGR (gross gaming revenue in Portuguese). It determines the appetite or not for large investments in a certain city or region and, from there, calculate the volume of investment to be made.
For example, a casino in São Paulo with a hotel of 1,000 apartments and a large event center would take about R$ 2.5 billion (US$ 560m) in investments. A lot of money, isn't it? Yes, and it is directly proportional to the revenues from gambling, accommodation, food and events in a complex like this. Where else could we consider numbers and investments of this dimension? Maybe at one or two beach resorts in the NE.
Small bingos in several cities in Brazil gravitate around this rationale, generating taxes and jobs where there are taxes and jobs to be generated. This, however, is not a static reality as some advocate using the Las Vegas example - developed under the sign of illegality, well in the past century mobster. When there is a discussion about the distribution of gaming licenses under the shadow (not the light!) of the federative pact, we not only create products and opportunities that are not of interest to the investing capital, but we limit the possibility of greater investments for large tourist centers. This feasibility analysis cannot be done by throwing political data and hoping for a favorable outcome.
In addition to understanding the operation we want, we are at that critical moment in defining how we become more beautiful and attractive to the great heartthrobs of gambling in the world. Caixa Econômica Federal needs to study and define a support and incentive package along the same lines as large factories, etc.
An operation of this level and of this sector will face monumental challenges to be successful. The barriers range from architectural projects and civil construction to the almost insurmountable wall of Brazilian tourist labor. Recruiting and selecting employees for a relevant casino hotel will be a challenge perhaps as great as training and developing the same casino, accommodation and catering teams.
Brazil is the last great frontier of the gambling world. Something like the remake of the 1960s series “Star Trek”, only with money to spare for special effects.
Receiving investments from the big “casinos” like Apollo Investments, from tycoons like Stanley Ho or Sheldon Adelson means putting bazooka lands in the spotlight of the world press - specialized in tourism or not.
See: the Portuguese who set foot in Macau around 1560, legalized gambling there, called "luck or chance" in 1847. 1847! Today, 20 years after it was declared in a Sino-Lusitanian agreement as “Macau's special administrative region”, the tax revenue from gambling grows every year and is one of the most relevant. I'm not going to spend printer ink to talk about jobs, social transformation, tax revenue, blah blah blah.
What I'm going to do is kindly ask the gaming subcommittee in Congress to please use the couch or vacate it at once to end all this anxiety.
Julio Gavinho
Director at Lyon Capital Investimentos Imobiliários; professor of the MBA course in Luxury Hospitality and the MBA course in luxury architecture at Faculdade Roberto Miranda.
Source: Hoteliernews
