Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad has confirmed gambling tax in the country will increase from 12% to 18% of GGR.The Brazilian Institute of Responsible Gaming or IBJR has spoken up about the increase in tax and said that this would result in the black market growing from 50% to 60%. Six of the largest gambling trade associations have also released a joint statement pointing out that the gambling sector has already contributed significantly to the country and to impose higher tax will be a burden.
Do you think that casinos would continue to want to operate in Brazil with these taxes? I am assuming that as a result, casinos would offer higher prices on their services as well due to the taxes and would most likely drive away customers. Would this eradicate the gambling sector altogether?
If this threat is much and becomes unaffordable by them, there will only be a few registered gambling companies in Brazil because many will be running away from the challenges of their regulations, more so, there will be less or fewer existence of the physical gambling and most will be forced to operate online, government are not encouraging at all, if they could do this to gambling sectors, expect much or related on other sectors as well in the economy, because government don't tend to allow the existence of anything without their regulation on it, but the rate charged on taxing them is extremely high.