Online sports betting operator Betcris has launched a dedicated site for the Brazilian market as it waits for the country to finally launch its regulated wagering regime.
On Thursday, Betcris announced the launch of br.betcris.com, a Portuguese-language site that offers Brazilian customers a variety of sports betting and casino options, along with access to the company’s Betcris Arena loyalty program. Site visitors will even find the grinning face of Brazilian football great (and Betcris brand ambassador) Ronaldinho grinning out at them.
Betcris has prioritized its Latin American operations, as evidenced by the official betting partnerships the company signed this summer with the National Football League and Major League Baseball for LatAm markets. But Betcris CEO JD Duarte called Brazil “priority number one” for his company this spring as Betcris signed on to sponsor Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, the top flight of Brazilian football.
There’s no question that Brazil, with a population of around 213m sports-mad souls, is LatAm betting’s great white whale. Brazil approved betting legislation two years ago but has dragged its feet ever since on determining the appropriate licensing model and crafting the necessary regulations.
The pandemic has certainly complicated matters of state, but Brazil’s government appears far more consumed with the equally unresolved issue of whether to approve land-based casinos, which could conceivably contribute significantly more cash to the threadbare state budget.
Should Brazil’s Union (federal) government continue to dither, individual states may choose to take the lead (as is currently happening in neighboring Argentina). An opportunity may have arisen in the recent ruling by Brazil’s Supreme Court that, while the Union could pass laws governing lottery operations, individual Brazilian states were entitled to launch lotteries within their own borders.
Some legal analysts have suggested that, since Brazil’s legislation classified betting as a lottery product, the Court’s ruling might allow individual states to authorize lotteries that offer betting alongside more traditional lottery products. To date, this idea doesn’t appear to have gained much traction, but if the Union keeps stalling, all bets are off (or on, as it were).
Regardless of how quickly the Union proceeds, Brazilians have no shortage of online betting options at their disposal. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of internationally licensed betting sites targeting the Brazilian market, and over 60% of the top two tiers of Brazilian football have some form of gambling sponsorship (much of it from international operators). None of which earns the government a single centavo, by the way. You think they’d have noticed that by now.
