Irajá Silvestre: "Casino legalization is one of the biggest positive agendas in Brazil this year"

The bill to legalize Brazil casinos integrated with resorts, bingos, and gambling (PL 2.234/22) will be approved by the Senate in the first semester of 2025. At least, that is what Senator Irajá Silvestre (PSD-TO), rapporteur of the bill, expects.

During a round table on the first day of SBC Summit Rio, the congressman reaffirmed the sector's potential for job creation, economy, and tourism in the country. "This is perhaps one of the biggest positive agendas for the country in 2025, without undermining the other projects that are also about to be voted on," he said.

The senator also made a comparison between the betting market and the Brazilian agribusiness, seeing similarities in the fact that both have faced a public image crisis.

"I think last year was a year where the focus was really on online gaming. And then there were ups and downs, weren't there? A public image crisis very similar to what Brazilian agriculture went through in the 2000s. You may not know this, but 25 years ago, Brazilian agribusiness was seen as a business with no future, deforesting the environment and promoting slave labor," he explained. 

“And then agribusiness went through a public image reconstruction and reaffirmed itself as being a sustainable business, environmentally friendly in order to remain viable and also to comply with labor legislation. So, making this analogy, it is basically what is happening today in the industry," he said.

In Irajá's opinion, the criticism faced by the online gaming sector in 2024 hindered the progress of the bill for the legalization of casinos, bingos, and gambling in the Senate. The proposal came to be included in the voting agenda in December last year but was withdrawn after pressure from opposition groups, mainly senators from the evangelical bench.

"I, for my part, am very confident, very hopeful, that we are going to approve this issue, which is an economic agenda and a social agenda. It is not an ideological agenda. It is going to be a transforming project for the Brazilian economy. We will remember tourism before and after the Party," he concluded.