Brazil Bans Online Betting

Didn't we already get rid of the industry and then bring it back, a few times?

Think that's a very valid statement. Had they waited a bit longer, the number of politicians and judges that were bought off or sold out, would make such an action near impossible.

Worth to point out it's a "Provisional Measure". Basically a decree with law power as soon as President signs it. But congress need to vote in the next 6 months or else it it goes null.

The congress (and justice) it's where lobby power is right now, so it will be a very problematic long months...

Agreed. But as usual you gotta see it in the light of the upcoming elections only 9 days away, meaning they had over 3½ years to do something about the snowballing societal crisis and never lifted a finger. Quite the opposite actually, as Lula's deeply corrupt government actually issued the pending regulatory decree for betting sites and thus effectively cleared them to operate legally in the country

And the algos they use to drive people harder to gamble are particularly pernicious. It isn't just putting slot machines in their way when they're walking to the washroom. It's high-pressure psychological tactics that are hard for non-addictive people to ignore, let alone gambling addicts.

It's utterly evil, and destroys lives and families. This shit needs to go.

Another problem, at least here in Brazil, it's just it created a bubble in ad market. TV, soccer clubs are all betting. Nothing more. Even news channels have betting ads.

This imo totally distort the ad market, and you have companies with smaller capital (like retail) or younger companies who can't compete with bet money. This hurts real economy SO bad.

Cimed (Brazilian pharma) CEO just said today that he is going to sponsor soccer clubs now.

Let alone how it made a lot of people in debt, and this is hurting consumption a lot. The retail market was heavily favorable to the ban because of this.

Oh, there's also "cartels" like PCC and CV that are involved with it.

I mean, they even cancelled a few taxes that they themselves had approved in the past, just before the elections. What a coincidence!

If only that actually matched history...

The so called "bets" were authorised to operate in Brazil in 2018 via law 13.756/2018, in the first year of Jair Bolsonaro's presidency.

Jair Bolsonaro, who was found guilty of Federal crimes and is paying his sentence under house arrest due to frail health, is the father of Flávio Bolsonaro, main adversary of incumbent President Lula da Silva.

So it is in fact the opposite of what you described.

"Betting" was made legal by Temer (2018), the Bolsonaro administration (2019-2022) should have regulated it, but they refused to do so. Lula (the current president running for reelection) did finally regulated them back in 2023 (i.e., made them finally pay taxes and introduced a few protection mechanisms and data sharing obligations), however it was still a societal problem as you put it, which they finally fixed today by banning. Your comment makes it seem like the current administration allowed bets in the first place. That didn't happen.

Being down-voted for speaking facts tells a lot about Brazil's current climate.

This was introduced and regulated as a way, i assume, to get taxes from those betting business, and everything was in fact legalized and regulated in the current government that was struggling with money. I saw a lot of people spending all of their money on that stuff and get broke. I have not heard a single thing about prohibiting that until very recently, and it's a great example of how the short-term memory of people can be exploited for social engineering (or political campaigns, they are very similar). It would be great if that was, in fact, enabled in the previous government so the current one would have prohibited years ago but we all know that this isn't what happened. At least it is going away and it's a net positive, but do not forget those who wanted to profit from it.

Not the same goverment.