The manipulation of sports match results to favor betting results led to the indictment of 14 people and the banning of three players by FIFA, following investigations by the Public Ministry of Goiás.

The CPI opened in the Chamber of Deputies to investigate fraud was closed last Tuesday (26) without voting on the final report, but with the proposal of four bills on the subject.

Match manipulation and other frauds are addressed in a number of points in the bill, which establish the mandatory nature of a prevention policy and actions that can be taken by the Ministry of Finance in the event of suspected match manipulation.

The bill, which is awaiting consideration in the Senate, does not provide details on procedures such as the application of sanctions or how fraud will be monitored.

Possible changes in the Senate

The current text details that, if there is suspicion of manipulation of results, the Ministry of Finance may determine, as a precautionary measure:

• The immediate suspension of bets and the withholding of payment of prizes in relation to the suspicious event.
• The suspension or prohibition, to one or more operating agents, of betting on intercurrent or specific events occurring during the test, match or suspected dispute, other than the specific prediction of the final result.
• Other restrictive measures designed to prevent or mitigate the consequences of practices that violate integrity in sport.

It is possible that parts of the text regulating betting will be modified in the Senate to make the legislation more specific with regard to combating fraud and money laundering.

Senator Eduardo Girão considers that the text approved in the Chamber is bad and states that he will fight to make changes when the matter passes through the Revising House.

He highlights that he has already proposed seven bills in the Senate that seek to mitigate the “serious and negative social impacts” of sports betting.

“They deal with the inhibition of advertising in mass media, restrictions on sponsorships for sports teams and arenas, the application of larger funds to policies to prevent gambling, and the impossibility of offering fixed-odds betting games and games of chance that are still prohibited in Brazil, such as bingo and casinos, on the same platform,” he says.

Malleability of the law

For Fabiano Jantalia, founding partner of the Jantalia Advogados law firm and specialist in gaming law, the text approved by the Chamber has already reached an “optimal” point.

He explains that the most detailed rules on fraud and money laundering are often not in laws, but in sub-legal regulations.

He believes that there is still a lot of prejudice related to the sports betting sector, which could lead to excessive caution in drafting the bill. According to the expert, greater detail would make the law less flexible.

Next steps

After the law is approved, the Ministry of Finance will have to issue regulatory acts to detail the issue of fraud in sports betting. Fabiano Jantalia believes that good money laundering prevention practices from other sectors, such as banking, should be incorporated.

“The development of a system through which the Ministry of Finance would receive bets in real time is being studied, which would allow monitoring of issues of money laundering and match manipulation,” he says.