BRAZIL – Senate handles casino bill
On Thursday afternoon, Dec. 15, the world's gaming industry celebrated the excellent early Santa Claus presence in the form of a Japanese National Assembly endorsing casino laws for the country, and in Brazil, senators continued a 20-year long debate to legalize casinos, bingo, illegal street lottery jogo do vicho, after which they decided to send the PLS 186/2014 bill to the Constitutional and Legal Committees for further debate and an uncertain future.
The delay in debate and vote on the casino bill in the Senate is due to the personal benefit of many lawmakers, who are more interested in what is beneficial to me than what is beneficial to the country. Debate and vote on the bill is about whether or not to approve a nauseating bill, so voting to send the casino bill to another Senate committee is another ploy by lobby groups against casinos in Brazil.
Edgar Lenzi, president of BetConsult, a leader in the Gaming Brazil sector from Sao Paulo, said, "The Senate voted 44 times in favor of sending the proposed law to the CCJ (Constitutional and Judicial Council) for a debate on constitutional grounds that may affect the law. This committee is responsible for conducting a constitutional analysis of the law and discussing legislative proposals to the Brazilian parliament. In fact, the committee does not do an analysis on the proposed law itself, but rather an analysis on the relationship between such a law and the constitution."
Meanwhile, in the House of Commons, the plenary held a full public meeting with discussions on the white paper PL 442/1991 on the merits of this casino bill, in which many sectors of society are for and against legalization.
"The debate and vote in the House on the request for an emergency vote on this House's casino bill, the PL 442/1991 bill, has yet to take place, and could still take place this year. On matters related to the Senate, there is still no agenda for the CCJ session to discuss the PLS 186/2014 project, which will probably take place after February 2017," Wrench concluded.