DataSenado's new survey shows that 60% of Brazilian adults want land-based gaming to be legal.
Gambling on land in Brazil
The DataSenado Research Institute revealed the results of a countrywide study on Tuesday, April 22, 2014. The survey asked people how much they supported land-based gaming in the country. DataSenado is a research center that works with the Federal Senate's Transparency Secretariat.

Last June, the Justice and Citizenship Committee passed PL 2,234/2022, a law that would make land-based casinos, bingo, jogo do bicho, and horse racing betting legal.

The bill has been delayed and faced obstacles, but there is some hope that the Senate may vote on it soon. Senator Irajá Abreu, who is in charge of the bill, said earlier this month that he thinks the bill has enough support to get final approval from the Senate.

This latest study, which included computer-assisted phone conversations with 5,039 Brazilian men and women aged 16 and up between February 21 and March 1, backs up Irajá's claim that the Brazilian people support land-based legalisation.

Sixty percent of respondents who were asked stated they were in favour of regulating and keeping an eye on gambling on land. At the same time, 34% said they were against the plans, while 6% said they didn't know or didn't want to answer.

The economic benefits of making gambling on Brazilian land legal
A lot of the reasons why politicians support land-based gambling have to do with the money it could bring to Brazil.

Some others think that legalising it may bring in about BRL20 billion (£2.6 billion/€3.1 billion/$3.5 billion) a year.

Fifty-eight percent of people who were asked by DataSenado indicated that legalising land-based gambling would help the government collect more taxes. Twenty-two percent said it wouldn't make a difference.

Also, 44% of the people who were asked think that making land-based gambling legal would create more jobs in Brazil. International companies like Hard Rock International are already planning to enter the market.

Alex Pariente, Hard Rock International's corporate senior vice president of casino and hotel operations, told iGB before that "We are very keen on presenting an integrated resort as a bigger impact on the economy, because of the magnitude of the investment."

"Building an integrated resort that could attract tourists from the region and around the world could help the government reach its goal of boosting tourism." In the same way, the billions of dollars that go into building an integrated resort create jobs.

DataSenado's study suggests that more than a quarter (26%) of the people would gamble on land if it were permitted.

Even though it's against the law, most people in Brazil seem to know that land-based gambling is rather common. Only 25% of those polled think the present ban is extremely effective at stopping the activity.

Making the action official
Like the licensed online option that started on January 1 of this year, legal land-based gambling would likely make the activity more official and help lower the negative effects of things like addiction and criminality associated to betting, which is mostly caused by illicit activity.

Sixty-five percent of those surveyed thought it was very necessary to make measures to stop crimes related to gambling, like money laundering. Seventeen percent felt it was only important.

CNN Brazil reports that Brazil's federal police are against land-based legislation because they are worried that it could lead to more money laundering.

When asked if they thought it was a good idea for the law to say that land-based machines in casinos will be watched to make sure they are honest and clearly disclose the regulations, 62% of respondents replied yes.

Also, 54% think it would be a good idea to set up a national secret registry of those who are addicted to gambling so that they can't play as much. Meanwhile, 52% believed that laws to keep people from going into debt because of gambling were very necessary.