Despite being just days away from the opening of Brazil’s regulated market, the dispute between the Attorney General of Brazil (AGU) and Rio De Janeiro’s State Lottery, Loterj, is still ongoing. 

On the latest episode of iGaming Daily, Fernando Noodt was joined by Ricardo Assis and Ana Maria Menezes from the SBC Noticias Brasil team, as well as Isadora Marcante, SBC’s Relationship Manager for Brazil, to discuss the case and round up the rest of the news from the region.

In the most recent update, the Brasilia Federal Regional Court ruled against the AGU. As a result, Loterj-authorised businesses can continue to operate in accordance with the rules set forth by the State Authority Notice, without the need for approval from federal agencies.

Isadora explained that the ongoing dispute stems from previous rulings that deemed sports betting to be a modality of the lottery and removed the federal government’s monopoly on offering a lottery to the public.

She said: “I don’t think the federal government predicted what was going to happen, they didn’t see [federal sports betting legislation] coming.

“They didn’t actually analyse all the possible scenarios that we could have after ruling on this stuff. The industry is very divided, so it’s a very delicate case.”

The disagreement between regulators at a federal and state level is set to rumble on well beyond the official opening of Brazil’s regulated online gaming and sports betting market and Isadora predicts that it could take as long as beyond 2026 for a resolution to be found.

Elsewhere in Brazil, a push to ban welfare beneficiaries from using government money to bet has been appealed by the Attorney General’s Office as it claims it does not have the technological capabilities to facilitate the ban.

“After the [welfare] money goes into people’s accounts, it gets mixed because many beneficiaries get money from other sources as well,” explained Ricardo.

“So they can’t distinguish the money that comes from the government from the money that comes from the other sources. So the Attorney General’s Office has asked the Supreme Court to give more guidelines on how they can do it because, from a technical standpoint, it is impossible to do.”

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