Payday

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Researchers conducted a rapid desk review of 53 relevant sources, three deliberative focus groups segmented by gambling product type (sports betting, online casino/slots and land-based gambling) and four in-depth interviews with people identified as being at higher risk of harm (Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) score of 8 or more). 

A total of 22 participants were purposely recruited to provide detailed insights.

Participants broadly accepted the principle that gambling information should be transparent and accessible, but many reported difficulty interpreting or using it effectively in practice. 

What is Payday?

The report also cites brands targeting a specifically banned vertical or product within a jurisdiction as driving black market activity. While markets across Europe have many examples, one such flagged in the report is that iGaming remains illegal for licensed operators in France.

“The largest black market operators have scaled to create recognisable brands with traffic that can compare to domestically licensed operators,” the report’s authors wrote. “The top group of sites by common owner has a 12% share of traffic, while the largest single brand has 10%.”

Beyond offering crypto payment solutions, a number of black market operators are licensed in “light touch” offshore jurisidictions which use opaque offshore operating structures to help to obscure company ownership and make local enforcement against these companies complex, the report noted.

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During a livestream on Sunday, he said he had met with “eight victims of online betting”. To reinforce his criticism of the sector and in an attempt to win over conservative voters, he pointed out that one gambler had made 1,400 instant fund transfers (Pix) to a betting site. Lula criticised the Central Bank for failing to detect such a high volume of transactions to a single company.

However, that responsibility does not lie with the Central Bank. It is the role of the Secretariat of Prizes and Bets to monitor and regulate the sector. Betting companies submit detailed daily reports on bettors’ financial transactions with the sites. A specific module within Brazil’s betting management system detects recurring transfers.

“Today I met a young man who made 1,400 Pix transfers in three months, and the Central Bank didn’t detect that this was an excessive number of transfers to the same company?” Lula said.