The creation of a municipal lottery will be analyzed by the councilors of Porto Alegre soon. The Municipal Executive Bill (PLE) nº 009/22, sent to the Chamber on March 28, provides for the creation of a method of drawing prizes and raising funds to help with public transport expenses.
The Municipal Secretariat for Economic Development and Tourism (SMDET) will be in charge of organizing the bidding and regularizing the modalities of games. Whether with physical and online bets or with the sale of printed cards with prize vouchers, the expectation is to put half of the amount obtained to subsidize the ticket.
In the justification of the project signed by Mayor Sebastião Melo, the municipal executive cites the responsibility of providing a quality public transport service. However, there is no forecast of how much financial aid would be or when the public transport system would start to rely on this aid.
“If the bill is approved, it will still depend on the company that manages to make the lottery viable to make it an attractive product to Porto Alegre, which will decide to encourage a cause linked to a lottery like the federal one”, explained the mayor.
The proposal also points out the competition of transport apps and the social distance necessary to fight the pandemic to justify the difficulties faced by the bus system.
“User evasion increased dramatically, reaching, in 2020, the level of 20% of the average number of transported users. This, added to the accumulated loss since the concession of the service, it is estimated that the system currently operates at approximate percentages of 50%”.
One of those responsible for evaluating the legality of the proposal will be councilor Claudio Janta (Podemos), president of the Constitution and Justice Commission (CCJ). Janta himself is the author of another similar proposal, PLL 07/2021.
In this case, the councilor argued that the storage should be intended for social assistance and combat the pandemic. “I’m going to remove mine so we can focus on the analysis of the current one. It is a way of making a significant contribution to the transport system with the same means of scratch cards and other games of chance that we already have”, he said.
Other cities with municipal lottery
The City Council of Guarulhos, in São Paulo, approved the development of its municipal lottery in the middle of last year. Poá, in the interior of São Paulo, also has its own lottery modality. In addition, Governor Eduardo Leite recreated and recreated the Rio Grande do Sul Lottery (Lotergs).
