Brazil's ban on gambling payments is good news for crypto gambling sites

Just last week we reported that Ignition Poker were entering the Australian poker market because new anti online poker legislation introduced by the Australian government had forced out major poker rooms like 888poker, PokerStars and PartyPoker. Australia are about to learn the hard way that in the era of crypto-currency payments, you simply cannot stop your country's citizens from gambling at bookmakers, poker rooms or casinos.

Now Brazil are in the process of following the lead of the United States by attempting to block payments to offshore gambling operators. Online gambling is currently prohibited in Brazil, which means Brazilian's are currently spending over $6 billion a year at offshore gambling sites. The Brazilian government are now attempting to block this leak of an estimated $2 billion in lost tax revenue by forcing their central bank to block any electronic payments made from Brazilian's credit cards and bank accounts to offshore gambling sites.

The PLS 213/2017 bill is similar to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) which has proven to be a failure in the United States as offshore gambling operators like Bovada and BetOnline have flourished since it was introduced. In recent times bitcoin-only gambling sites like CloudBet and FortuneJack have made it impossible for the United States government to stop their citizens from gambling online.

 

The newly relaunched Bovada Poker room welcomes players from Brazil and most other Latin American countries, so the Brazilian governments attempts to ban bitcoin will not work. https://forum.bitcoingambling.io/threads/bovada-poker-relaunches-in-the-usa-mexico-and-brazil.262/