Labor Minister Ana Mendes Godinho said on Tuesday the government would evaluate the study on scratch card addiction and then move on to take action.
“We need to evaluate the study to implement the measures accordingly. But, I repeat, it is extremely important to have a study so that we can act,” the minister said following a meeting in Lisbon between the government and CIP – the Confederation of Portuguese Businesses.
However, the minister did not specify what the government was going to do.
The national study “Who pays for the scratch card?”, carried out by the University of Minho and commissioned by the Economic and Social Council (CES), which was published on Tuesday in Lisbon, shows that the “scratch card” is an “addiction”. it affects about 100 thousand adults in Portugal, of whom about 30 thousand suffer from pathological gambling disorder.
According to the study, women, people with low income and low education levels are the ones who bet the most in this game.
Ana Jorge, provider of the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa (SCML), on Tuesday expressed her commitment to finding answers to combating scratch card addiction.
According to SCML’s 2022 plan and budget, the actual sales of scratch cards in 2020 amounted to 1,440 million euros, which is about half of the total sales of social games (including totoloto, totobola euromillions, lotteries and other games). In 2020, the scratch card gave away approximately 2.8 million prizes each week.
The Labor Secretary was also asked about the possibility of workers with income equivalent to the minimum wage starting paying the IRS in 2024, but he did not respond.
“Please wait, as a result, issues have been identified that CIP considers significant,” he said.
The minimum tax exemption from the IRS will not be updated and will not correspond to the national minimum wage in 2024, SIC Notícias reported on Monday, citing government sources.
On Tuesday afternoon in Parliament, Prime Minister Antonio Costa said that in the 2024 state budget the government will “update the minimum wage in line with the update of the national minimum wage”, meaning that the minimum wage will remain without paying the IRS.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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