In the midst of accusations, operations and arrests involving sports betting schemes, Sports Minister André Fufuca (PP) said on Wednesday (11): "‘We can't confuse the bad with the good. We have to separate the wheat from the chaff. These accusations that we are seeing will be investigated and I guarantee that, on the part of the Ministry of Sport, all rigour will be used so that we have maximum fairness in relation to sports betting,’ during an interview in a local program. 

Fufuca also commented on the recently created National Secretariat for Sports Betting and the Economic Development of Sport, which is linked to the portfolio and will be under the command of lawyer Giovanni Rocco Neto. The appointment was published on the 2nd of last month in the Federal Official Gazette.

‘One of the demands I made of the new secretary was that he play as strictly as possible and investigate what he has to investigate, do what he has to do. We have to be fair. Not least because we're talking about hundreds of thousands of fathers and mothers of families who often place their bets, place their faith,’ he said.

‘If there's one thing there can't be, it's any kind of illegality. In this respect, we are totally vigilant to ensure that there isn't. And if there is, that the guilty parties are punished,’ added Fufuca.

Bets pandemic

Data from an opinion poll by the Locomotiva Institute shows that between January and July this year, 25 million Brazilians started placing sports bets on electronic platforms - an average of 3.5 million a month. The timeframe is shorter than the time needed, for example, for Covid-19 to infect the same number of Brazilians, which happened in 11 months, from February 2020 to January 2021.

The survey shows that, in five years, the number of Brazilians betting has reached 52 million. Of this total, 48 per cent are considered new players (they started betting during the first seven months of 2024). The habit of trying their luck on electronic platforms in the country currently reaches a group the same size as the total population of Colombia and larger than that of countries like South Korea, Spain and Argentina.

Agência Brasil