After approval of the Legal Framework for Gambling in Brazil in the Chamber of Deputies, the proposal went to the Senate. The expectation is that the agenda will be put to a vote later this year, probably after the general elections in the country. The text provides for the release of casinos integrated with resorts, slot machines, bingos, animal games, among other modalities.
In a column published on the Folha de São Paulo website, Hélio Schwartsman defended the right to bet legally in Brazil. For the columnist, there is no way to adopt the argument of individual autonomy to support the right to use drugs, abort or submit to euthanasia, but not extend this right to those who would like to spend part of their resources in a casino in Brazil.
For Schwartsman, this taboo related to gambling and betting in Brazil is due to a ‘half-beast moralism’ that makes part of the population judge those who choose to bet their own money. The text was published last Friday, July 1st, on the Folha website. Check out the column in full!
You cannot defend the right to use drugs and not to play
The bingo, casino and Jogo do Bicho lobbies are not the best company to be with, but we should try to maintain some consistency. I don’t see how the argument of individual autonomy can be used to defend the right to use drugs, abort or submit to euthanasia but not extend it to those who want to spend the money they earn honestly in slot machines or roulette. What we are basically discussing is less the content of each of these rights and more the limits of the State’s power to regulate people’s lives.
Be careful, I’m not defending a Bolsonarist version of freedom as the right to do everything that nature allows us to do. Whenever the consequences of an action can cause concrete harm to third parties, the public power has the legitimacy to act. But when the deleterious effects primarily affect the person who made the choice, only freedom, including the freedom to err, should be preserved. A didactic example is the combination of drugs (especially alcohol) with driving a vehicle. If the guy wants to stuff himself with cachaça or cocaine, that’s his right. But if you do, you cannot drive your car as it would put pedestrians and other drivers and passengers at risk.
Of course, in the real world, people are much less autonomous than we would like (free will itself may be an illusion) and there is no action that, to some degree, however small, does not affect the whole community. Even so, I think we need institutions and rules that preserve the idea that everyone is responsible for their choices, or we would inaugurate the regime of guaranteed irresponsibility. I would say this is one of the necessary fictions.
At the end of the day, I think it’s just a kind of silly moralism that makes us disapprove of the guy spending all his money on the game, but we don’t object when he gets the same result in the derivatives market.
