FactCheck BNLData: Research linking gambling to "addiction" has a weak methodology and ignores official industry data.
The Pulso | Apostas 2026 survey , commissioned from the Hibou institute and distributed to the press in September, made strong headlines: more than half of gamblers have already delayed a payment "to finance their addiction," and 8 out of 10 Brazilians believe that gambling can be addictive. The numbers are real, but the way they were collected and, especially, how they were woven into the narrative of the study's dissemination deserves closer scrutiny before becoming established truth about the behavior of Brazilian gamblers. Access to the complete technical data sheet—not just the press release—also reveals a gender breakdown that alters part of the interpretation of the study, as we show below.
A digital panel is not a probabilistic sample — and the cited margin of error does not apply to that.
The press release states that the survey was conducted “through a digital panel,” with over 2.400 self-declared respondents from socioeconomic classes A, B, C, and D. Digital panels are composed of registered volunteers who answer surveys in exchange for points or rewards—a non-probabilistic sampling method, subject to self-selection (people who are more digitally engaged, more willing to talk about money and gambling, tend to self-select). The 1,9 percentage point margin of error cited in the methodology assumes simple random sampling from a defined population, which is not the case for a volunteer panel. Assigning a formal statistical margin of error to this type of data collection lends a veneer of scientific precision that the method does not support.
A universe that already excludes the most vulnerable segment of the population.
The sample only covers classes ABCD, over 18 years of age — that is, class E, traditionally the most exposed to income shocks and default, is excluded. This is relevant because the press release uses the financial commitment of respondents as a central argument, but it comes precisely from the segment of the population with a relatively more structured income.
The subsample of bettors is too small to support the most alarming figures.
The figures most cited by the press — the 53% who were late on bills, the 59% who cut back on household purchases — do not refer to the total of 2.470 respondents, but only to the 38% who declared themselves gamblers, that is, a base of approximately 930 to 940 people. A subsample of this size has a much larger real margin of error than the 1,9 percentage points announced for the total survey — something in the range of 3 percentage points or more, depending on the exact sample design, which the published material does not detail.
Late payment of bills is not synonymous with addiction — and the research does not isolate this causality.
The press release headline claims that gamblers delay paying bills “to finance their addiction.” But the question asked, according to the material, was about having failed to pay a bill “in order to gamble”—a behavioral observation, not a diagnosis. No clinical addiction assessment tool was applied. Treating this data as proof of “addiction” is an inference from the press release, not a result of the questionnaire.
More seriously, Brazil is experiencing a record level of debt default that is not directly related to gambling. According to a survey by Serasa published in 2026, the country reached 81,7 million Brazilians in debt, a 38,1% increase in ten years — a problem that the company itself attributes to structural factors, such as high interest rates, inflationary pressure, and unplanned use of credit, and not to specific consumption habits like gambling. Without comparing gamblers with non-gambling individuals of similar socioeconomic profiles, it is impossible to know how much of the reported overdue bills stems from gambling and how much reflects this general picture of indebtedness among Brazilian families — which affects tens of millions of people who have never gambled in their lives.
The research contradicts itself regarding the seriousness of the problem.
The survey itself shows that only 15% of bettors report feeling their betting "getting out of control" (6% frequently, 9% sometimes), while 56% say they have never felt this impact. This is far from supporting a narrative of a widespread addiction epidemic — in fact, it reinforces that the majority experience is one of controlled leisure, which also appears in the stated motivations: entertainment (42%) and social fun appear alongside financial interest (47%), and only a residual minority associates bonuses and promotions from betting sites with their decision to bet.
The breakdown by gender shows that the "problem" is concentrated among men.
The complete technical data sheet of the research reveals a breakdown by gender that did not appear in the press release—and this significantly changes the interpretation of the study. While 38% of the total declare to gamble, among men this percentage rises to 54%. Assuming a roughly balanced division of the sample between men and women, this implies a much lower female participation rate, something close to 20%-22%—less than half that of men. The “Brazilian gambler” that the research portrays is, in practice, a profile heavily concentrated in the male public.
The same pattern repeats itself, even more clearly, in the study's most serious indicators: 30% of men gamble "a few times a week," compared to 11% overall; 57% of men report having reduced household purchases "a few times" because of gambling, compared to 45% overall. And, in the most revealing data, only 40% of men say they have "never" felt their gambling getting out of control, compared to 56% overall—which, by the same logic of proportion, suggests that among women this percentage of "never" is well above 80%. In other words: the financial compromise and loss of control that the headline generalizes to "gambling" predominantly describes a male experience, diluted in the aggregated reading of the "general" situation.
It's also worth noting an inconsistency in the technical data: in the question about the main factor in choosing a betting site, "reputation of the site / trust in the platform" appears with 44% overall and 98% among men — a jump that contrasts sharply with the variation in the other lines of the same table (which increase, at most, about 1,5 times the total value). It is likely a transcription error in the material, but it is the kind of detail that reinforces the need for caution before treating any number from this research as definitive.
The 38% figure for "gamblers" doesn't align with official data from the regulated sector.
The research does not distinguish between bets placed on regulated platforms and informal bets made with friends, in group bets, or on clandestine websites—all seem to fall into the same category of "betting on bets." This already explains part of the discrepancy between the declared number (38% of the population) and the official data from the licensed market. According to a report from the Secretariat of Prizes and Bets of the Ministry of Finance, the regulated market registered 15.186.243 unique CPF (Brazilian taxpayer identification number) holders with at least one bet in the first quarter of 2026, and the base of active registrations, adding up the entire history of the market, reached 30,9 million unique CPF holders in the first half of 2026—a level well below the almost 80 million adults that the 38% in the research would suggest. The difference does not invalidate the research per se, but it shows that it is measuring a broad and poorly qualified perception of "betting," not necessarily the behavior in the regulated market, which is the target of much of the public debate.
Causality can also work in the opposite direction.
Hibou's research treats the link between gambling and financial commitment as a one-way street: a person gambles, loses control, and falls behind on bills. However, there is evidence that the reverse also occurs with significant frequency—some who are already in debt resort to gambling trying to reverse their situation, not the other way around. A survey by Serasa in November 2024 showed that 44% of indebted respondents stated that they had gambled in an attempt to pay off debts, motivated mainly by the search for quick money or extra income. This does not invalidate Hibou's finding about gamblers who become indebted through gambling, but it shows that the picture is more complex than the headline suggests: for a significant portion of the indebted public, gambling is a symptom of a pre-existing financial difficulty, not its original cause—which reinforces, once again, the need for a comparison group that the research lacks.
Low participation in the Desenrola program is not proof of an absence of debt — in either direction.
Another piece of data circulating in the debate about betting and debt deserves the same scrutiny, so as not to become easy ammunition in either direction: of the approximately 30 million betting accounts registered in the regulated market, 800 were blocked after joining the Desenrola 2.0 program, which prevents those who renegotiate debts from accessing betting platforms for 12 months. This is equivalent to 2,6% of the total number of bettors—a low number that has been used to argue that the vast majority of bettors are not in debt. The problem is that this conclusion extrapolates what the data actually shows: the New Desenrola 2.0 has restricted eligibility (income of up to five minimum wages, only credit card, overdraft, and personal loan debts incurred until January 2026, in arrears between 91 days and 2 years) and requires active enrollment via bank. Not meeting these criteria, or simply not having sought out the program, does not equate to not being in debt — Brazil has 81,7 million people in debt according to Serasa, a much larger universe than the audience that any edition of Desenrola has ever served. The Desenrola data is useful for putting into perspective the thesis that betting is the main cause of national indebtedness — 2,6% is, in fact, a small fraction compared to the scale of the problem — but it does not serve as statistical proof that bettors, in general, are free from debt.
There is a lack of transparency regarding who commissioned and funded the study.
The promotional material does not specify whether the research was a spontaneous initiative by Hibou for market positioning or if it was commissioned by third parties—a public body, a financial sector entity, an anti-gambling organization, or a media outlet. Unlike electoral polls, there is no legal obligation for public registration for this type of consumer opinion survey, but the absence of this basic information makes it difficult to assess possible interests behind the choice of topics and the framing of the questions.
Distorted narrative
The raw data from the Hibou survey—at least some of it—is not implausible: it's plausible that a portion of gamblers commit part of their household budget, as happens with other forms of consumption and credit in Brazil. The problem lies in the packaging: a survey with a non-probabilistic sample, small subsamples, absence of a comparison group, and no clinical measure of dependence is presented as proof that sports betting generates mass "addiction"—when the study's own internal numbers (56% never felt a loss of control; dominant motivation is leisure), the concentration of the most serious indicators in the male public, the evidence of causality in both directions, and the low adherence of gamblers to debt renegotiation programs tell a more moderate and specific story than the headline suggests. Before reproducing the headline, it's worth looking at the complete technical data—and applying the same standard of rigor to any number, wherever it comes from, that attempts to close this discussion on only one side.
Check out the Pulso | Betting survey for August 2026.
Gamblers in Brazil are delaying payments and cutting expenses to maintain their bets.
