Self-exclusion: protection for bettors is exclusive to the regulated market, according to data obtained via the Access to Information Law.

BNLData gained access , through the Access to Information Law (LAI) — from the Ministry of Finance regarding the Centralized Self-Exclusion Platform and from the Ministry of Health regarding the SUS's telehealth services for gamblers — to information that, when read together, reveals a conclusion that escapes the public debate about the size of the gambling problem in Brazil: protection for gamblers only exists where there is regulation. Outside the market authorized by the Secretariat of Prizes and Bets (SPA/MF), there is no self-exclusion, no data blocking, and no registration — only the patient who, later, arrives at the SUS.

The Brazilian public health system (SUS) also provides care for those who gamble on illegal websites.

Since it began asking patients in telehealth programs whether the platform they are using is authorized by the SPA/MF (Brazilian Ministry of Health's regulatory body), the Ministry of Health recorded only 291 responses between February 25 and August 27, 2026—a small number considering the service's capacity, which has been expanded to up to 100 telehealth consultations per month. Even so, the result is revealing:  

Among those who responded, bettors on illegal sites (37,5%) already outnumber those on the authorized market (34,0%) — and this despite the legal market concentrating the overwhelming majority of the betting volume in the country. This data supports a point that the regulated sector has been defending for some time: part of what is presented as the "gambling problem" in the public system originates outside the market that is regulated, monitored, and pays taxes — and reaches the SUS (Brazilian public health system) anyway, with the cost borne by all taxpayers, legal or not.

Self-exclusion: almost half indicate a problem — the other half use the tool by choice.

The new response from the Ministry of Finance also detailed the reasons given by those who resort to the Centralized Self-Exclusion Platform — a tool that simultaneously blocks the bettor's CPF (Brazilian taxpayer ID) across all operators authorized by the SPA/MF (Spanish Secretariat of Finance/Ministry of Finance). Of the total 1.214.252 responses counted:

This number is part of the Centralized Self-Exclusion Platform, created by SPA and made available in December 2025, and represents 3% of the 40 million active CPF numbers registered in the Betting Management System (Sigap).

Taken together, the reasons that effectively indicate a problem with gambling — loss of control (mental health), financial difficulties, and professional health recommendations — account for 49,42% of the total. The other half (50,58%) is made up of those who self-excluded themselves voluntarily, as a precaution regarding the use of their data by operators, or preferred not to disclose the reason. In other words, almost half of those who use the tool report some degree of problem, but most resort to it as a preventive measure — exercising a right that simply does not exist for those who gamble outside the regulated market.

The most significant piece of data, however, lies in the timeframe chosen by the bettor:

Two-thirds (66,84%) of those who self-excluded — 811.590 people — opted for an indefinite term, meaning they seek long-term protection, not a temporary break. This behavior is consistent with those who use the tool preventively and seriously, and not with a market that, as industry critics suggest, encourages compulsive gambling without offering any benefit.

Protection as the exclusive domain of regulation.

Taken together, the two sets of data point to a simple and little-discussed conclusion: protection for gamblers is not a natural attribute of gambling, but a product of regulation. It was the SPA/MF (Portuguese Securities and Exchange Commission) that created the registration, the blocking by CPF (Brazilian taxpayer ID), and the possibility of prohibiting the commercial use of one's own data—none of this is available to those who gamble on clandestine websites, which operate without any obligation to offer self-exclusion, deposit limits, or any other containment mechanism.

Meanwhile, the SUS (Brazilian public healthcare system) — which doesn't distinguish between legal and illegal bettors when providing care — continues to absorb the costs from both sides of the market, as shown by the responses from the Ministry of Health. The difference is that, for bettors in the authorized market, there is a tool capable of intervening before a crisis; for those in the illegal market, the first (and only) contact with any kind of support tends to be the public health system itself.

This does not eliminate the problem of compulsive gambling — the data shows that it exists and affects a significant portion (49,42%) of those who self-exclude. But it indicates that discussing the size of this problem without separating the legal from the illegal market, as the SPA/MF and the Ministry of Health have already begun to do, is to ignore precisely the variable that regulation was created to measure and contain.