Brazilians spend $11.6B a year on online betting, minister says - GMA Network

BRASILIA — Brazil's Finance Minister Dario Durigan said Tuesday that Brazilian households spend about 60 billion reais ($11.6 billion) a year on online betting.

The government, meanwhile, collects roughly 10 billion reais in taxes imposed by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's administration.

Speaking as a representative of Lula's economic platform ahead of the October election, Durigan said the leftist president "has shown himself to be strongly opposed to online betting" and that his administration would do whatever it can to further curb the sector in Brazil.

"We need to find even tougher ways to tackle it because it is a real problem," he said, without detailing possible actions, during a forum hosted by media outlets owned by Grupo Globo.—Reuters