Brazil’s Paraná Lottery Proves Popular Online
Regulated sports betting in Brazil will be underway soon at long last now that the first company has been authorized to offer it. The Rio de Janeiro Lottery (Loterj) gave its permission to the Paraná Lottery (Lottopar), which has already seen positive results and a great deal of interest from the global gaming community.
The Rio de Janeiro Lottery has issued authorization for its first site to offer sports betting. Lottopar is now looking for a partner.
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Regulation has been a long time coming in Brazil
Lottopar published its Edict of Accreditation of Lottery Operators to its site on May 19, 2023. Since then, there has been an outpouring of activity around the site. It has reported a record-breaking amount of visits in the first month after publication.
More specifically, 2,556 visitations were recorded during that period. The Accreditation Notice was one point of particular interest, with 309 of the views. All in all, 463 were new users to the site. 84 people downloaded the Accreditation documents.
Visits were also international, with hits from at least 25 countries aside from Brazil, and across all continents. However, Lottopar must still work together with a sports betting partner to offer the services that it is now legally allowed to do. Such partners can register their interest with Lottopar, and the company will ultimately make a decision to find the best match.
Lottopar’s work in sports betting was approved by a state decree that was published in 2022. Brazil has also awarded such authorization to another group, which is made up of PayBrokers (a payment system specialist) and Skilrock (a global lottery company).
Delays and plans for future operation
Sports betting in Brazil will soon operate in a similar way that it does to the United States, with the federal government overseeing national regulation and state governments approving within their own territories. Though the concept was initially approved federally in 2018, it has been on hold for various reasons since then.
Back in 2018, it was stated that the deadline for completing the regulation process would be December 12, 2022. This deadline has come and gone and the results of the process are still somewhat unclear. However, the movements towards offering authorization in Rio de Janeiro are a positive sign for the future.
At the moment, about 450 operators offer sports betting in Brazil, but all are foreign and do not host their main operations within the country. That has meant a lack of regulation, oversight and tax collection.
This has been a huge concern for Brazilian governments both on a national and local level, as economies have suffered throughout the pandemic. Despite this, the Ministry of Finance has also lagged in presenting a provisional set of rules for guiding the development of the sports betting industry in Brazil, though it has voiced support for the endeavor.
Part of the issue has been poor timing. Of course, the country struggled during the pandemic as did many. Sports betting regulation was not necessarily a priority at this time. Furthermore, the country has undergone a massive change in government.
In late 2022, Brazil voted into office former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who took office officially on January 1st, 2023. “Lula” took over from controversial, conservative president Jair Bolsonaro during a fairly tight race. The election was notable in that it highlighted two highly contrasting visions for Brazil’s future.
It was also notable from a gambling angle. Though Bolsonaro initially shared support for sports betting — and other gaming — regulation, he flip-flopped on the issue later on to garner support from Brazil’s religious voters. Lula has voiced support for regulation.
