This year, finally, bingo will have its law.

It seems like only yesterday, but it's been almost two years since the Abrabin board, represented at the time by its president Olavo Sales da Silveira, vice-president Miguel Galvez, and directors…
Osmar José de Souza, Jaime Sirena (president of the Rio Grande do Sul Bingo Association) and Manoel Martins de Oliveira (president of the Goiás Bingo Association), were invited by deputies and senators to clarify points related to the activity.
At the time, a joint committee, chaired by Congressman Ronaldo Vasconcellos (PF – MG), was studying amendments to Law No. 9.615 (Pelé Law), which covered, among other things, bingo. A consensus was reached that bingo would be the subject of its own legislation. Congressman Gilmar Machado (PT – MG) was tasked with reporting on the bingo issue, while the main rapporteur, Senator Maguito Vilela (PMDB – GO), was responsible for leading the amendments to the Transfer Law, which gave rise to the Maguito Law.
Due to political issues at the time – including Pelé's departure from the Ministry of Sport and the priority that needed to be given to the Transfer Law – it was not possible for the bill to address the issue of sports/bingo. The Maguito Law only dealt with matters relating to the Transfer Law and set a date for a law concerning bingo to be addressed.
Initially, Abrabin waited, as per the commitment made by executives from Caixa Econômica Federal at the first seminar of Agebi (Associação Gaúcha de Entidades Esportivas e Administrativas de Bingo), in Porto Alegre, for the federal institution to coordinate the initiative to create a bill for bingo halls.
At the inauguration of the new director-superintendent of Lotteries at Caixa, Dr. Marco Antônio Lopes, in July of last year, Abrabin was informed that the institution was declining the initiative to coordinate the new bill.
At the same time, he handed over the material he had collected up to that point in meetings with various interested sectors. From that moment on, Abrabin took on the task of gathering information and supporting documents for a bill, which was finalized in the Education, Culture and Sports Committee of the Federal Chamber, with Congressman Gilmar Machado as rapporteur and Congressman Valfrido Maris Guia (PTB-MG) as committee chairman. Subsequently, according to the internal procedures of the Chamber of Deputies, it had to go through the Constitution, Justice and Drafting Committee (CCJR), chaired by Congressman Inaldo Leitão (PSDB-PB) and with Congressman Osmar José Serraglio (PMDB-PR) as rapporteur.
At the end of the year, bill 1.037/99 was approved by the CCJR (Committee on Constitution, Justice and Drafting) and we expect it to be ready for enactment by the end of the first semester. We believe it is important to emphasize that today there is a consensus, even within the Executive branch, that bingo deserves different tax treatment from lotteries and that the issue of defining bingo revenue (which cannot be confused with betting turnover) is a matter of settled understanding. These two points, very important for the consolidation of our activity, have finally been understood by both the Legislative and Executive branches.
(*) Olavo Sales da Silveira is the president of Abrabin