Upload
nguyendung
View
214
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
The UK’s European university
It’s all about that place: commercial
bingo regulation in Brazil.
Toni Williams, and Maria Luiza Kurban Jobim
Brazil is one of a minority of countries where law tightly
restricts gambling products and opportunities.
Dória, Estudo de uma modalidade de jogo no mercado Brasileiro, (2014 IJL) p.4
Gambling in Brazil: casinos
http://acervo.oglobo.globo.com/fotogalerias/os-cassinos-suas-
estrelas-9947137
http://www.pocosdecaldas.mg.gov.br/site/?page_id=10541
Hunting of the Snark: (the search for bingo in
Brazil)
• What we were looking for… experience and practice of bingo as
an understudied social activity, an
equal chance game, regulated by
multiple social and legal processes
and norms.
• purposeful / purposeless
(fundraising, leisure, older
women’s leisure, working class
women’s leisure, families,
female)
• Active, participatory, skill
(cognitive, coordination)/luck
What we found • … More than • 51% of the Brazilian
population think bingos are related to
criminal practices such as money
laundering, tax evasion, and increasing
violence. To 43%, the bingo halls have no
positive features. (CPI dos Bingos 2006,
p.120)
Organised• crime and gambling are
“conjoined twins”.
Since the beginning of their activities in •1993, the bingo halls have rendered a
disservice to the nation…
Bingo has among its stakeholders • … who
…represent the interests of an
international organised mafia (CPI dos
Bingos 2006 pp.7-8).
Gambling markets under neoliberalism
Adams thesis
Bingo in Brazil: an open
and shut case
• Widening and deepening
of play encouraged or at
least endorsed by the
state.
• 4 phase process• Emergence
• Regulation
• Liberalisation
• Normalisation
1993
Lei Zico (Lei n.8.672/93) Decreto n.
988/93
1998
Lei Pele (Lei n. 9.615/98)
Decreto 2.574/98
2000
Lei Maguito (Lei n.
9.981/00)
Enabling (commercial) bingo through
privatisation of sports development…
• 1993 Lei Zico, Art. 57 “Sports clubs and Olympic
sports federations able to demonstrate active
participation in Olympic sports may be
authorised by the Treasuries of their respective
states to hold events intended to raise money for
sports development by means of sweepstakes
called Bingo, or similar.”
• Why? [Lei Zico] creates conditions for the
beginning of a new era of sport, with an
enhanced role for the private sector and the
reduction of state interference in sporting
activities … with the goal of implementing a
sporting democracy. (Dossiê Lei Zico, p.260).
• [Lei Zico aims to] (a) expel from sporting
legislation any authoritarian philosophy, which is
disciplinary, controlling, centralised, restrictive,
elitist and protective of personal and group
interests; … and (c) enact, in the sports field, the
predominance of a ‘destatization’ philosophy …
eliminating state interference in the internal
business of sport clubs” (Dossiê Lei Zico, p.392)
“A working group was established to evaluate how to bring resources to [sports development], and someone said we will do bingo because bingo was reputed to be strong sponsor of competitive sailing in England. The model was imported without consultation. No one had operated bingo or had any previous experience of this model in Brazil. It simply did not exist here. Then along came the legislator with Lei Zico and the model was approved.” (Male, former bingo owner, São Paulo).
The success of bingo liberalisation in Brazil:
number of operating bingos *after* closure of the market
Source: data reported in the CPI dos Bingos, 2006 pp.112-3
“Within four months, seven bingo halls began to work regularly in Porto Alegre center, there are another 10 applications for authorization for establishments of this kind in the capital and many plans for the interior. "It became a craze," says Rildo Machado da Silva, Bingo Beach Street supervisor. "Competition is getting stronger." Zero Hora 12 November 1994.
Empress Bingo –
interiors
“There are some very sumptuous
establishments, such as the …
Empress Bingo, located in the city of
São Paulo. The magnificence of
these bingos is evident from the
outside. Their luxurious interiors are
designed to impress”. (CPI dos
Bingos p.116).
Brazilian bingos: not entirely homogenous
• “Bingo Roma was famous for being one of the most luxurious places in the city ... the first
time I went it was a beautiful place with lovely chairs and tables made of marble.” (public
official, RS)
• “A little over a year ago, the image of a bingo hall used to be a common room with long
tables, dining chairs, straw and underpaid workers trying to have fun or earn some money
without spending a lot. Today a bingo is a carpeted environment filled with mirrors, full of
electronic equipment and waiters in ties serving imported whisky. …The old bingo has
became a chic leisure option.” (Zero Hora 1998).
• ”Our bingo brings together people representing 90% of the Gaúcho GDP.” (Bingo Manager in
Zero Hora November 12, 1998).
But there were other types of licensed bingo• …
• “There was a huge bingo on two floors. It gave us dinner, afternoon coffee… everything. It
was on two floors. One floor was only slot machines, another floor was only card bingo. It was
a huge hall and always crowded. It was in a mall and always packed because the people who
worked at the mall played a lot. Lunch-time was a time that the card bingos were always
packed. Card bingo was much cheaper. The slot machine is very expensive. So card bingo is
more popular.” (Female player, Rio Grande do Sul).
• “Central Bingo with its plastic tables and chairs and reusable cards mostly attracts the lower
and middle classes… the public who really understands bingo" (female bingo manager
quoted in Zero Hora November 12, 1998, p.5).
• “Our clients are ordinary people”, said the owner of the Royal Bingo, which recently opened
with its plain fittings and the lowest prices in the city. (Zero Hora November 12, 1998 p.5).
•
Bingo regulation timeline 1: Federal legislation
Zico Law (Lei nº • 8.672/93): + state level autonomyDecree• nº 981/93: loopholes Electronic Gaming Machines (EGM) permitted (slot-machines).
Pelé Law (Lei nº • 9.615/98): + federal empowermentDecree• nº 2.574/98 EGM permitted (each bingo hall – up to 400 EGM).
Maguito Law (Lei nº • 9.981/2000). Closed the market:No new • authorisationsNo • renewals of existing annually renewable authorisations.
Bingo regulation timeline post-2000: conflict
and resistance
• Medida Provisória nº 2.049/2004: rejected in theNational Congress – failed presidential decree;
• 2007 • Operação Furacão: exposes corruption of judicial power;• Súmula Vinculante 2: affirms federal government’s
exclusive control over gambling regulation; • CPI dos Bingos reports that foreign and domestic criminal
organisations had captured much of Brazil’s bingo market, but nonetheless recommended reopening the market withstronger and more effective regulation.
• Post -2007 • De facto closure of formal bingo market in Brazil followed
by opening of informal “clandestine” and itinerant bingos businesses in many parts of the country.
• Multiple bills in Brazil proposing legalisation• Significant expansion of gambling liberalisation elsewhere
Enforcement through place: confiscation and
decapitalisation…
• “at one point we had about ten illegal bingo halls that
were working simultaneously in Porto Alegre. So I
went there and closed them and the next day they
were open again. I tried as a strategy to seek to “de-
capitalise” these offenders, seizing all the material that
would include all the furniture, ie tables, chairs,
everything that they used to operate the bingo. We
sometimes took 300 or 400 chairs, armchairs, tables.
Even doing this, some bingos were still very fast to
reopen the establishment, which shows that they
really had a lot of capital to finance the reopening of
these locations.” (Male, Public Prosecutor, Rio Grande
do Sul).
Brazil case: summary of findings
Brazil• ’s regulatory arrangements from 1993-2007 left the retail
bingo market vulnerable to capture by economic criminals and
significantly damaged public confidence in the capacity of
regulation to protect a retail bingo market against crime and
corruption risks.
The return to prohibition does not benefit Brazil since clandestine •play continues and illegality generates costs of enforcement,
corruption, foregone jobs and taxable revenues; and gambling
problems, including fraud and the exploitation of vulnerabilities,
are driven underground.
It is implausible to think that Brazil can create a trusted licensed •bingo market comprised of private sector businesses without
robust, effective and well-funded regulation that is clearly
differentiated from and stronger than the failed regulatory
practices of 1993-2007.
Why did regulation fail to manage risks?
effectively
Commercial bingo • –created by the Brazilian elite in
pursuit of a privatisation agenda and to a substantial
extent to meet their image.
Regulation generally enabling and facilitative in form •but:
Bingo • legalised as an exception .. Exposing bingo as the only
non-state means of delivering gambling products and
services
Standards were poorly designed and created perverse •
incentives… constructed bingo as spaces requiring
considerable capital investment to establish and run.
Under• -investment in regulatory structures
Bingo project recommendations: Brazil case
• Legalise bingo
• More generally replace gambling prohibition with a
comprehensive regulatory system consisting of well-
staffed and properly funded regulatory agencies and
substantive regulatory provisions
• Draw on international good practice but tailor regulatory
arrangements to Brazil's distinctive history, cultures, legal
institutions and political arrangements. • Place regulatory powers including licensing, inspection, revenue
distribution, consumer protection and enforcement at the state
level
• Support state regulators to develop a network regulatory model to
maintain consistency of practice without centralisation.
Bingo project recommendations: Brazil case• Differentiate bingo as a specific form of gaming distinct from slot-
machines and casino games.
• Develop an expanded concept of responsible gambling that
incorporates systematic and effective conduct of business
regulation to protect players and improve fairness in the market. – Know Your Customer and Know your Provider principles;
– Implemented through revisions to Brazil’s Código de Defesa do
Consumidor (Consumer Protection Code);
– Include enforceable obligations on bingo providers to “treat customers
fairly” and to demonstrate to regulators their compliance.
• Bingo providers should be subject to duties to prevent crime,
including fraud, money laundering, bribery and corruption and to
demonstrate compliance.
• Develop "Bingo Watch" NGOs – to strengthen the capacity of civil
society, independently of the regulator, to assess and where
necessary critique the performances of bingo providers against
their regulatory duties to treat consumers fairly and prevent crime.