Yduqs CEO attributes drop in enrollments to gambling, but company data and revenue contradict this.
The CEO of Yduqs, Rossano Marques, stated in a teleconference with analysts and investors this Thursday (August 14th) that "bets consume income and hinder higher education," attributing the lower demand for courses registered during the 2026 World Cup to sports betting. This statement, replicated by Valor Econômico in the report 'World Cup with the legalization of betting hindered enrollments in the winter entrance exam ', directly links the legalization of online betting during the tournament period, held between June 11th and July 19th, to the decline in enrollments in the winter entrance exam. Data from the sector itself contradicts this narrative.
What the numbers say
According to data obtained by BNLData via the Access to Information Law (LAI) from the Secretariat of Prizes and Bets of the Ministry of Finance (SPA/MF), June 2026 registered the lowest gross revenue (GGR) in the regulated fixed-odds betting market in the entire first half of the year: R$ 3,34 billion. The month included 19 days of the World Cup and 72 matches, but was surpassed by all other months of the period. The peak of the semester occurred in January, with R$ 4,29 billion, before any tournament matches had been played.
The growth of GGR (Gambling Risk) in the first half of 2026 was 15,3% compared to the same period in 2025, a moderate pace that does not support the hypothesis of a betting boom capable of diverting income from families precisely during the school enrollment period. Federal tax revenue reinforces this interpretation: the Federal Revenue Service recorded R$ 8,747 billion from betting and gambling between January and July 2026, with a consistent growth trajectory throughout the year, without a surge concentrated in the months of June and July.
The Blask Index, a survey by the market intelligence platform for iGaming , indicates a 13% growth in demand for betting in Brazil during the first three weeks of the World Cup, comparing the period from May 22nd to June 10th with June 11th to 30th. This figure is lower than that recorded in Germany (+34%) and Argentina (+30%), placing Brazil in the middle range among the 42 countries monitored, despite the country having the highest absolute volume of demand in the sample.
The explanation that the company itself gave to the market.
What makes Marques' statement even more problematic is the contrast with Yduqs' own formal document. In its second-quarter 2026 earnings release , published on August 13, one day before the conference call, the company attributes the drop in its distance learning (EAD) student base to a distinct and explicit cause: the restrictions of the sector's new regulatory framework, which prohibits the enrollment of new students in Engineering, Health, and Teacher Training courses in the EAD modality, coupled with the migration of students to the blended learning format. The EAD student base fell 6,9% year-on-year, from 1,092 million to 1,016 million students; EAD undergraduate programs, specifically, fell 18,3%. Estimates from banks cited by the market indicate that the enrollment of new EAD students plummeted 51% in the quarter. At no point in the official document does the company mention sports betting as a factor.
Cogna registered a similar trajectory: a 16,5% drop in enrollment in the first half of the year, with distance learning accounting for a 33,9% decrease. The company's press release points to the same structural causes: the new regulatory framework and the migration to blended learning, whose student base grew by 13,3%. Cogna's CEO, Roberto Valério, adopted a different tone from his Yduqs counterpart when commenting on the period. Instead of turning a correlation into causality, he acknowledged that the lower demand on game days was due to young people's attention being focused on the World Cup, "and not necessarily because they allocated income to online betting ," and admitted that "it is not yet possible to define how much studies are losing to betting."
Unquantified hypothesis as a categorical statement
The difference in stance between the two executives describing the same market phenomenon exposes the central problem with the verified assertion. Valério acknowledges the absence of data to support his conclusion; Marques presents a causal narrative as fact that his own official document, published 24 hours earlier, does not corroborate.
Data from SPA/MF and the Blask Index do not show a concentrated surge in betting during the World Cup period capable of supporting the thesis of income diversion. The verifiable cause of the decline in enrollments for the 2026 winter entrance exam, as recorded in the formal releases of Yduqs and Cogna, is regulatory: the restrictions on attracting new students to distance learning imposed by the sector's new framework. The claim that betting "consumes income and hinders higher education" as an explanation for this decline is false.
