Some subjects are still taboo in a Brazil that seems to have been stationed in other eras. One of them is the question of gambling. It is claimed that allowing the activity is to encourage money laundering. As if there had been no money laundering in so many other seemingly lawful activities.
Doesn't gambling exist in Brazil? What do the thousands of lottery shops in all cities mean? And all the betting that rolls loose over the internet?
Brazilians who like to gamble go to casinos in nearby countries, or constantly travel to Vegas. Are there no clandestine casinos in operation, under the connivance or complicity of those who should eliminate them?
The Brazilian moment of public calamity would be lessened if casinos, which employ thousands of Brazilians, return. There has never been so much unemployed in this country. More than fourteen million are looking for a job. Casinos would welcome many of them. It is not just those who are responsible for running the betting house. They are waiters, cooks, drivers, chefs, maitres, receptionists. Not to mention the artistic part, a point in which Brazil has always stood out. Just remember the glorious times of Cassino da Urca.
What actually prevents gambling from returning? Is there anything more reliable than the so-called “jogo do bicho”? Those who bet say that the payment is effective, timely and fair.
However, Article 50 of the old Criminal Misdemeanor Law rules. The classic Bento de Faria, who studied this category, recalled that the doctrine distinguished between crime and misdemeanor, whether resorting to qualitative or quantitative theory. There were also those who supported an eclectic theory: qualitative and quantitative. In addition to the differential circumstance of the penalty, there is a potential violation of the right in the contravention, the possibility of possible danger, a commission or omission regardless of guilt or intent and without intention to violate the law.
The population is surprised that some games are banned, while others are encouraged. The traditional justification is the preservation of the popular economy, an objective that the parallel practice of official lotteries and unscathed to criminal sanctions evidently compromises. The permitted and sanctioned games do not differ in structure and substance. In all of them, the typical character of the game of chance: the hope of profit to be made, pecuniary sacrifice, the public character of the operation and the gain obtained by luck.
Brazilian legal conscience has already discriminated against the jogo do bicho. It is worth mentioning the three-dimensional theory of Law, elaborated by this giant ‘jusphilosopher’ who was Miguel Reale. The norm cannot prevail when the value that inspired its edition is changed. The legal system should prepare and curb other practices, much more damaging and, indeed, causing social alarm and damaging to the economy.
There is no repudiation value for the exercise of the game, but against the corruption that destroys the reliability in certain niches of incestuous collusion between State and business. To punish the jogo do bicho, to punish the game of chance, to prohibit casino, is evidence of an ineffective normative system, in Norberto Bobbio's proposition. A normative system is ineffective when there is an insurmountable gap between what your standards say and what your recipients do. There are rules that become impotent, as they are inadequate in the face of the social reality they intend to regulate.
The rules must correspond to what the community understands is lawful and feasible, reasonable and aimed at achieving the common good. To highlight the disadvantage of the misdemeanor that prohibits gambling, one can invoke the father of normativism, Hans Kelsen. For him, “a legal standard is considered as objectively valid only when the human conduct that it regulates corresponds to it effectively, at least to a certain extent. A standard that is never and nowhere applied and respected, that is, a standard that - as they say - is not effective to a certain extent, will not be considered a valid (current) standard. A minimum of effectiveness is the condition of its validity.”
The Brazilian Judiciary, which was already as active in protecting the concubine, so advanced in relation to the formerly so-called illegitimate affiliation, which today recognizes multi parenting, which created monetary correction, should recognize the fallacy of the ban on gambling and release the return of casinos. There is a considerable dose of hypocrisy in the prohibition of gambling and a cost / benefit analysis for a country that is unable to offer work for its youth, would need to think about viable options.
There are things far more immoral than gambling. Those who still defend the ban know this. Or can all countries that encourage gambling - and there are many - be considered sponsors of immoral practices?
José Renato Nalini
Rector of Uniregistral, professor of postgraduate studies at Uninove and president of Academia Paulista de Letras - 2019-2020
Source: Estadão
