A congressman from Rio Grande do Sul defends Casimiro and criticizes the "selectivity" in attacks regarding betting.
State Representative Claudio Branchieri (RS) used the platform of the Legislative Assembly of Rio Grande do Sul to defend CazeTV and its founder, Casimiro Miguel, at a time when the streamer and businessman is facing criticism related to advertising for sports betting sites.
In his statement, Branchieri questions what he calls the selectivity in the criticism of the content creator. The central argument is that traditional broadcasters, streaming platforms, and football clubs, such as SBT and Grêmio, also air betting advertisements without facing the same repercussions. According to the congressman, the pressure concentrated on Casimiro is disproportionate given this broader scenario.
CazeTV and the broadcasting market
Branchieri presents CazeTV's trajectory as an example of entrepreneurship: Casimiro started with live streams from his own bedroom on the Twitch platform and built, from there, a company with significant reach. The channel registered 21 million simultaneous viewers in one broadcast, a mark cited by the congressman as a record in YouTube history.
Branchieri links CazeTV's growth to the "home team law," enacted in 2021, which he claims opened up space for new competitors in the football broadcasting rights market, previously dominated by Rede Globo. In this context, the congressman criticizes the CBF's decision to exclude CazeTV from the Copa do Brasil broadcasting rights auction, classifying the measure as protecting oligopolies at the expense of public interest.
Bets, debt and payroll loans
Regarding the debate surrounding the indebtedness of the Brazilian population and the role of sports betting in this context, Branchieri disputes that betting is not the determining factor. To support his argument, he cites data attributed to the Federal Revenue Service: the revenue of the betting sector was R$ 37 billion in 2025, while the amount paid by workers in the same period reached R$ 1,5 trillion in interest.
Based on these figures, the congressman argues that payroll-deducted loans, and not gambling, are the central element in household debt. The logic of his statement is that attributing responsibility for the population's financial problems to gambling would divert attention from credit mechanisms that, in Branchieri's view, directly burden workers' salaries.
The statement was made from the podium of the Rio Grande do Sul Legislative Assembly and, according to the released text, included a call for the content to be shared and commented on by the public.
