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Malta-based online gaming operator KTO has launched a Brazilian election section of its website, where users can bet on various outcomes related to October's highly anticipated election that will be pivotal to the future of the country's gambling market.
Launched on September 23, the Brazilian betting site allows users to bet on 26 different markets, ranging from “Will the presidential election be decided in the first round?” to the percentage of votes a candidate will receive in a given municipality.
KTO said that it established the odds in house using current polling data and data from the last five general presidential elections.
CEO Andreas Bardun said in a statement: “It is a way of understanding what the expectations of these people are. At the same time, it is our contribution to making the election more engaging for all those who follow this great democratic event."
Brazil’s election is keenly anticipated, with the first round taking place on October 2, with multiple candidates. The election will continue to a second and final round on October 30 with the top two candidates if no single candidate wins over 50 percent of the vote in the first round.
The final two candidates are expected to be current incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro and former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula.
In a nod to his base of socially conservative and religious supporters, election-year politics have seen Bolsonaro essentially stall a regulatory decree to implement a 2018 sports-betting law. The incumbent President also has threatened to veto a broader gambling bill pending in the Senate to regulate land-based and online gaming.
At the SBC Summit in Barcelona last week, KTO's Bardun acknowledged the difficulties of political betting in the Brazilian market.
“All our Brazilian team is very nervous about this [the launch] because Brazilians are very passionate about everything they do, from football to politics, so it's very important.
“In this case, we're not taking a political stance by showing the odds in favour of one or the other … because it can be very, very dangerous in Brazil to actually — well it’s easy to be misunderstood. And this, I think, is one of the things that's very, very important for any operator targeting Brazil: you need to understand the nuances and the passion of the Brazilians.”
Current polling data favours Lula, who outlawed bingo halls during his first presidency, to triumph over Bolsonaro in the election.
Last week, Datafolha polling numbers showed that Lula’s lead over Bolsonaro was slightly increasing, to 47 percent versus Bolsonaro’s 33 percent in the first round of the election.
Bar Bolsonaro refusing to accept the election results, the regulation of sports betting is expected in the immediate months after the election no matter the outcome.
However, Brazilians cannot yet bet on when exactly regulation will arrive.
