Provisional measure no. 1,182/23 – known as the Betting MP – included art. 35-E in Law no. 13,756/18, which contains a list of people who are prohibited from participating directly or indirectly, including through a third party, as a bettor.

This list of people who cannot place sports bets includes people registered in national credit protection registries, that is, those who have a “bad credit rating” , a common expression used among Brazilians who find themselves in this situation.

What is a credit protection registry?

Credit protection agencies, such as SPC Brasil , Serasa and Boa Vista SCPC , are entities that gather information on the financial and credit history of individuals and legal entities, with the purpose of helping financial institutions, creditors and other companies to verify the payment capacity and risk of default of their customers.

The information held by these bodies is used to make decisions about granting credit, loans, financing, property rentals and other types of financial transactions based on a superficial risk assessment.

Credit protection agencies in Brazil work with the collection and storage of data from various sources, for example, banks, financial institutions, retail stores, telephone companies and public services, among many others.

Based on this data, these companies generate credit reports that provide an overview of the financial history of the individual or company. These reports may include:

• Information on loans taken;
• Bill payments;
• History of default;
• Credit inquiries made by third parties and,
• Other relevant information to assess the possibility of granting credit to someone.

Why is there this ban?

The Government included in the betting regulations a ban on placing sports bets by people registered in national credit protection registries, i.e., those with a bad credit history in the market.

But why did this happen?

“ Gaming addiction ”, a word that has been repeated by the press in several articles dealing with the provisional measure that amended Law No. 13,756/18, is the technical term used to define pathological gambling , that is, the psychological disorder characterized by the uncontrollable compulsion to bet money on games of chance or sports betting.

Since gambling involves betting money on the outcomes of sporting events, once it becomes a compulsive activity and negatively interferes with a person’s life, it can be a sign of gambling addiction.

The gambling addict constantly seeks emotions that make it difficult to stop betting (or playing) even when there are significant financial, personal or social losses.

Considering this social and health aspect, the Government, as in the regulation of other products or services likely to cause addiction in consumers (such as, for example, cigarettes, alcohol and sugar), provided within the scope of the provisional measure some rules that aim to protect the health of the gambler/consumer.

How will this control be carried out?

Therefore, since operators must follow the rules established in current regulations, this prior analysis, based on the CPF, must be carried out with credit protection agencies, either when opening the bettor’s account or for maintaining accounts already opened.

See Also : Responsible Gaming: Steps to Have a HealthyBetting Routine

Here, it is worth highlighting that, according to data extracted from the National Database of the Judiciary (DataJud), a system of the National Council of Justice (CNJ), in the first quarter of 2023 alone, 250,869 cases related to the undue inclusion of citizens in defaulters’ registers by companies were judged to be admissible.

This scenario includes situations in which people’s names were entered incorrectly or when companies failed to comply with the deadline stipulated by law for the proper removal of names from the list of defaulters. These processes often result in compensation for moral damages to the consumer.

However, it is worth mentioning that this concern related to the duty to compensate the consumer should not be outsourced to the operator, since this obligation falls to the legal entity that unduly included the consumer’s name in the bodies in question.

Operators will be responsible for complying with the rule and preventing, through their internal mechanisms, bets from being placed by such individuals, under penalty of being sanctioned for the administrative infraction of non-compliance with the rule (art. 35-C, item VII, of Law No. 13,756/2018).

The penalties applied to betting companies that do not perform this continuous monitoring of their bettors can range from a mere warning, fines, revocation of the license and disqualification from obtaining a new license.

In summary, the provisional measure seeks to harmonize the protection of bettors and consumers , while requiring betting operators to diligently comply with regulations.

The inclusion of these controls aims to maintain the integrity and reliability of the sports betting market, promoting a balanced approach that considers both the health of individuals and the proper functioning of this sector.