“It is time to create new products and services to increase the number of foreign visitors and generate more jobs, creating a safe legal framework for investors and with strict rules for the actions of inspection and control bodies,” Irajá said according to the Brazilian Senate News Agency. According to his estimates the bill would lead to investments of R$44,000m (US$7,384m) and the creation of as many as 200 thousand jobs.

The senator justified his project last year by citing the negative effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on tourism. For the senator, the integrated resorts would be “an opportunity to change the level of international visits to the country” and increase Brazil’s participation in the international market for conference and other events.

Bill 4495/2020 was originally put forward by Senator Irajá in 2020 and would allow for Integrated Resorts via a public tender with licences being valid for 35 years. The bill caps a maximum of one resort per state and one in the Federal District. It addresses the benefits of integrated casinos in the wider context of tourism policy only and does not address any other forms of gambling.

The bill began to gain impetus last year after the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, appointed Vital do Rêgo as a rapporteur of Irajá’s bill. The appointment of a rapporteur by the Senate President was seen as a positive step in paving the way for casinos in resorts.

If approved the physical space occupied by the casino should constitute a maximum of 10 per cent of the total area of the integrated resort .It also establishes that “it is up to the Union, exclusively, to grant, regulate and inspect the services, the implementation and the operation of the activities of resorts integrated with casinos.”

The proposal was the subject of a public hearing by the Economic Affairs Commission (CAE) held on December 9, 2021. Experts listened to by the CAE suggested specific improvements in the text, but agreed that the allowing gambling could provide a means by which Brazil face the tourism crisis and increase Brazil’s competitiveness in the sector.

Senator Irajá’s comments come as the lower house looks set to debate its own gambling bill this month. Meanwhile the all powerful Evangelicals caucus is waging its own war as they unite against any form of gambling expansion.