Timeline: Under pressure from Flávio Bolsonaro in the polls, betting becomes an electoral banner for the PT (Workers' Party).
Twenty-four days before the first round, the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) government has transformed the discourse against online sports betting into one of the central themes of its reelection campaign. The movement, which began as part of meetings on tax issues, has taken on explicitly electoral contours in the last ten days: Estadão revealed this Thursday (10) that the PT leadership decided to include the end of bets among Lula's "flags" after internal party polls and surveys such as that of AtlasIntel showed Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) technically tied with the president in a second-round scenario. In this investigation, BNLData reconstructs the sequence of events that took the issue of bets from the ministerial meeting table to the center of the campaign stage.
What motivates the shift?
According to Estadão , internal assessments from the Planalto Palace link Flávio Bolsonaro's rise in the polls to the worsening crisis between Supreme Court Justices André Mendonça and Alexandre de Moraes—and to the perception that the PT campaign's discourse, until then focused on the government's "deliverables," does not resonate with centrist voters. Faced with this, the PT leadership opted to "outsource" the direct confrontation with Mendonça to party leaders and activists, reserving for Lula the role of presenting future proposals. The end of gambling was chosen as one of these key issues, supported by government research itself that links household debt—one of the electorate's main concerns, according to the PT—to the growth of digital gambling.
Insufficient oversight
A report by Poder360 this Friday (11) reveals that the government's assessment is that the current oversight of the sector is insufficient to contain the problems associated with betting. This perception has become part of the internal discussion about tightening the rules, in an attempt to respond to an issue that has appeal.
The measure has the potential for positive repercussions. Research from the Secretariat of Communication indicates support from the majority of the population for stricter rules for the sector. This support is strongest among women and within religious segments, especially among evangelicals.
The goal is to associate Lula's administration with measures that have a direct impact on families' budgets and daily lives. Household debt has been exploited by the opposition, especially by Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ).
The instrument: why a Provisional Measure
Reports indicate that the government and its advisors opted for a Provisional Measure (MP) instead of a bill because the instrument takes effect immediately upon publication, while a bill would face resistance and would not have time to be processed before the elections—the next week of concentrated effort in Congress is scheduled for October, and the current legislative priority is the Constitutional Amendment Proposal (PEC) to end the 6x1 work schedule. Technically, a Provisional Measure is valid for 60 days, extendable once for an equal period (up to 120 days in total), and begins to block the agenda of the House in which it is being processed after 45 days without a vote—which limits the government's own room for maneuver within the electoral calendar.
Internal disagreements
CNN Brazil's reporting identified a division within the government: one faction advocates for milder measures, primarily focused on combating the illegal market and restricting advertising, while another pushes for harsher measures, including the possible prohibition of segments such as online casinos and modalities of the regulated sports betting houses themselves. The Ministry of Finance—responsible for a significant part of the sector's regulation since 2024—is identified as the main source of resistance to broader measures within the economic team.
What is not yet defined
Until Lula's interview with SBT News, this Thursday (10), the final content of the MP had not been defined. The president confirmed that he will decide based on what he heard from experts and sectoral representatives at the meeting on September 1st, but avoided detailing the scope of the measure. Sources heard by the press indicate that the text is still in the definition phase at the Civil House, with the Palace calculating the available regulatory space in Congress before the first round, on October 4th.
Why the decision is taking so long: the impacts the government is still evaluating.
BNLData's investigation indicates that part of the delay in finalizing the text of the Provisional Measure is related to the government's own assessment of the collateral effects of a potentially broader advertising ban or restriction. Two points are the focus of the technical analysis: the impact on football clubs and media outlets that currently depend on contracts with betting companies, and the effect on the legal beneficiaries of the fixed-odds betting model—the very tax arrangement that sustains the regulated sector's revenue.
The scale of the problem is already publicly documented: industry surveys show that most clubs in the Brazilian Série A currently have betting companies as their main sponsors, including Flamengo, Botafogo, Fluminense, Vasco, Palmeiras, Corinthians, São Paulo, and Santos, in addition to naming rights for competitions such as the Brasileirão itself and Série B. Recent reports estimate the potential impact on clubs in the event of a broad advertising ban at billions of reais, with fears of budgetary imbalances as early as the following season. Add to this the investment in traditional and digital media, which would also be compromised.
Furthermore, there is fiscal dependence: part of the revenue from taxing the regulated sector is already incorporated into the government's budget projections, a topic that BNLData has been following in its coverage of the 2027 Budget Bill. A measure that excessively restricts the operation of licensed establishments—and not just the illegal market—tends to put pressure on this same tax base, which helps explain why the text remains stalled in the Civil House even after Lula publicly signaled, since September 1st, that a "drastic decision" was imminent.
Why does this matter to the regulated sector?
This move comes at a time when the fixed-odds sports betting market has been operating under federal regulation since January 2025, with specific and strict advertising rules in effect since July. A provisional measure issued primarily for electoral reasons, without a prior formal public consultation process with the regulated sector—which was not represented at the September 1st meeting—tends to increase legal uncertainty for licensed operators and may clash with the government's own fiscal dependence on sector revenue, a topic that BNLData has been following in its coverage of the 2027 Budget Bill.
