During the drafting of regulations for the betting market, senior Treasury officials responsible for the issue held 251 meetings with betting companies or associations representing them. Health professionals were heard on five occasions. The current scenario in the country is one of a gambling addiction epidemic, according to researchers studying pathological gambling.

Folha analyzed 555 meetings involving members of the Ministries of Finance and Health between March 2023 and July 31 of this year (the next day, the government published the "responsible gambling" regulations).

The data was obtained on the E-agendas website and filtered with the help of artificial intelligence. Of the meetings, 381 involved the betting market, and 251 had betting representatives or their associations as the main interlocutors. The meetings involved Regis Dudena (Secretary of Prizes and Bets), José Francisco Manssur (former special advisor to the Executive Secretariat of the Treasury), Simone Vicentini (former deputy secretary of Prizes and Bets), and Sônia Barros (director of the Mental Health Department of the Ministry of Health). Minister Fernando Haddad participated in seven of the meetings.