Gambling frenzy may be hurting Brazilian retail
A study commissioned by a major Brazilian retailers association suggests that 63 percent of betting platform users have had their income compromised by gambling losses, and 23 percent said they refrained from buying clothes in order to place bets instead.
The survey, conducted by pollster AGP Pesquisas and published in June, interviewed 1,337 Brazilians. Of these, 508 (38 percent) said they had used online betting platforms at least once, with 58 percent of bettors being male.
Just over half of the bettors said they gamble at least once a week, and 49 percent reported gambling more often this year compared to 2023. While 77 percent bet on football matches, online casinos also attracted a portion of the bets.
The study found that most gamblers who refrained from shopping were young: 28 percent of those aged 18 to 24 prioritized gambling over other purchases, compared to 10 percent for those aged 45 to 54. Conversely, 12 percent of bettors aged 65 or older said they refrained from a purchase in order to bet.
Even food retail has been impacted by Brazil’s betting frenzy, with 19 percent of respondents saying they skipped a supermarket purchase to bet. Additionally, 11 percent said they did not purchase a healthcare service or medication, and the same percentage refrained from paying utility bills.
“Betting platforms are making Brazilians addicted to gambling,” Senator Eduardo Girão said in September 2023. The senator also urged bookmakers, regulators, and sports leagues to ensure no one gets an unfair advantage.
For the second year running, Brazil ranked as the world leader in the number of football games suspected of match-fixing, according to global sports tech firm Sportradar and its annual integrity report.
After overseeing around 9,000 Brazilian football matches across 118 competitions in 2023, Sportradar identified 109 games as “suspicious.” This was a reduction of almost 30 percent from the previous year’s report, but Brazil remains in the top spot globally, with second-placed Czechia having 67 matches flagged.
Sportradar’s integrity report uses a fraud detection system incorporating artificial intelligence to identify sports events that show signs of match-fixing or other manipulation.
It also uses its network of 77 partnered betting operators, which share information about suspicious gambling patterns, to pinpoint potential cases of match-fixing.
Sports ethics website Play the Game described Brazil as recently becoming “the Wild West of betting,” noting that “offshore betting companies have descended on the country in droves,” taking advantage of a lack of proper national regulation on sports gambling.
SBVC, the association that commissioned the study, includes major retailers such as Amazon, C&A, Dia, Pernambucanas, Riachuelo, Renner and Hering.
Eduardo Terra, head of the SBVC and a board member of major retailers, said in a statement that “we need to follow and monitor the growth of indirect competitors for the consumer’s pocket in a dynamic economy, which brings more and more challenges.”
Sports betting became popular in Brazil after 2018, when the Michel Temer administration issued an executive order permitting sports betting as a new form of lottery. Newspaper Folha de S.Paulo estimated that the sector raised USD 11.1 billion between January and November 2023, based on Central Bank data.
Over the last year and a half, sports betting has gained new regulations in Brazil. In May, the Finance Ministry issued a rule requiring betting platforms to have corporate offices in Brazil by the end of the year. Betting was also included in the “sin tax” as part of the tax reform package approved by the House floor last week.
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