According to the newspaper Público, SRIJ designed the new manual after hearing the associations of casinos, bingos, betting and online gaming and also the operators. In addition to limiting hours, the new set of rules also lists several “recommendations”, such as the fact that the ads should not suggest that gaming can “develop personal qualities”, be “a solution to financial problems” or “create the illusion that a person can win large amounts from gambling and betting.”
It is also mentioned that all ads must have a reference to the entities that deal with the addition to gaming and that, on social networks, these advertisers must activate the mechanisms that allow limiting access to minors. In addition to the new rules listed by SRIJ, the Ministry of Economy has already stated that "the possibility of changing the Advertising Code is still under analysis," recalls Público.
With casinos and bingos closed and without being able to isolate only the data for March, the month during which the state of emergency was implemented, the truth is that the quarterly figures for the beginning of the year show a chain growth of more than 6% and a year-on-year growth of 47.5%.
In a statement, at the beginning of May, the Ministry of Economy indicated that in the first three months of 2020, compared to the last three months of 2019, there was an increase in the volume of bets of 7%: and added that there was a drop in 6.4% in February, which turned into a 16.6% increase in March, precisely the month in which generalized confinement began.
Even so, and considering that this is a subject of “great complexity”, the ministry of Pedro Siza Vieira guarantees that it is not possible to “affirm that there has been a transfer of players” from traditional gambling sites to online gambling.
Público newspaper also states that, in early April, the Assembly of the Republic voted in favor of a bill presented by the PAN that provided for “partial or total limitations on access to online gambling platforms” until the end of the state of emergency.
However, despite the favorable opinion of the Parliament, the Ministry of Economy did not go so far as to regulate the restrictions indicated by the bill and now refers that the regime in question applied only to the state of exception, "that in the meantime ended."
Source: GMB / Observador.pt
