Plenary of the Federal Senate.| Photo: Marcos Oliveira/Federal Senate of Brazil

The Senate approved this Tuesday (6) the proposed amendment to the Constitution (PEC) that authorizes the extension of the contracts of all lottery houses in the country. The project includes art. 123 to the Transitory Constitutional Provisions Act (ADCT) of the Constitution, guaranteeing additional validity to these contracts, but without specifying the term.

The vote in the first round had 65 votes in favor and 1 against. In the second round, 62 favorable votes were counted, with no contrary votes, informed Agência Senado. PEC 43/2022, also known as the lottery PEC, had a favorable vote by the rapporteur, Senator Ciro Nogueira (PP-PI), and is now on its way to enactment.

The rapporteur stated that lotteries also provide “banking services and citizenship to Brazilians who do not have access to the banking network”. The president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), declared his support for the approval of the matter, although unable to register his vote for presiding over the session.

The text provides that, regardless of the start date, all “accreditations, contracts, additives and other forms of adjustment of lottery permission intended to enable the sale of lottery services, disciplined by law or in other instruments of specific scope”, will be extended. that are in force on the date of publication of the new constitutional provision. All these lottery agents will be guaranteed the possibility of an “additional period of validity, counted from the end of the term of the current instrument”.

The proposal was approved in the Chamber in December 2022. The PEC is an initiative of Deputy Fausto Pinato (PP-SP) and was originally processed in the Chamber as PEC 142/2015, providing only for the extension of existing contracts before the 1988 Constitution, if the contract was for an indefinite period. However, the deputies approved the text with changes that expanded those affected, that is, benefiting more than 70 thousand lottery shops, both those that operate under the permission regime (which won bids organized by Caixa Econômica Federal) and those that were only accredited.