The Ministry of Education should bring gambling addiction to the classroom — and to university entrance exams.
Cristiano Costa*
Psychological risks are always better managed in environments where there is ample access to information, connections with trusted individuals, and consequently, security for decision-making. In my view, this is not the environment where the debate about the impacts of regulating the betting sector in Brazil is currently taking place. It needs to reach schools—and the Ministry of Education can play an important role in this discussion.
In particular, we need to review the terms regarding the honesty we should have about the risks of gambling addiction or emotional and social disorders related to uncontrolled or excessive gambling. The most basic piece of information that Brazilian citizens need to know to gamble safely is the use of a platform whose internet address ends with .BET.BR . I challenge research institutes to ask this question and obtain this fundamental answer for the protection of the rights of gamblers and society.
And do you want to know why?
According to a survey by Ipsos commissioned by the identity verification platform Unico, 11% of 1.200 young Brazilians surveyed will have placed illegal bets in 2025. These figures reveal a crime, as this would never happen on a regulated platform due to the strict biometric and digital identification controls required by the government. To make matters worse, the highest percentage, 20%, who stated they had placed some type of bet in the last year, is in the 17-year-old age group, precisely the phase of the ENEM (Brazilian National High School Exam) or pre-university entrance exams. Looking at gender, the data is even more alarming, showing an increase in the 14-15 year old age group among girls, where 14% reported accessing online betting. Finally, in the 10-13 year old segment, 4% stated they had bet last year.
Given this, it is a risk that is beyond control and intensifies precisely where vulnerability is greatest. However, from the point of view of addressing the issue, Brazil, despite its decision to regulate gambling, is choosing a path whose destination we already know. Instead of creating an environment of informed freedom and mental health, the chosen approach is one that is known to have limited effectiveness: repression, prohibition, and the widespread distribution of certificates of incapacity for others. Note that in addition to the risk associated with gambling, the Ipsos research also included data on the use of vapes, alcohol, cigarettes, and other psychoactive substances.
As expected, the data is critical. The LENAD III, a national survey on alcohol and drug use, revealed data that gives the term "illness" its literal weight: among minors under 18 who had gambled, 55% already showed signs of addictive behavior—compared to 39% among adult gamblers. In other words, children and adolescents who gamble expose themselves to gambling, which highlights the greater vulnerability of young people to developing addictive behaviors.
Returning to the topic of betting, curiosity is the main factor in engaging with gambling (41%), followed by the possibility of making easy money (34%); digital influencers have less weight, at 9%. This data may or may not be linked to the fact that advertisements for illegal betting are becoming increasingly blatant. Frequent exposure to content related to betting and gambling on the internet contributes to normalizing this type of behavior among increasingly younger audiences.
More than testing knowledge about gambling addiction, a question in an essay or humanities section could prompt students to reflect on the boundaries between entertainment, consumption, economic pressure, individual freedom, and the protection of vulnerable groups—factors that go beyond the world of gambling and delve deeply into the discussion of mental health and citizenship. In this context, gambling addiction could—and should—occupy a place among the topics capable of provoking reflection in selection processes and in the school environment. Therefore, the Ministry of Education could stimulate debate on the topic in schools and encourage its inclusion in educational initiatives, without interfering with the autonomy of the examining boards.
Just as society recognizes that adolescents need to be protected from alcohol and other substance use before they are mature enough to handle the risks involved, we also need to discuss the limits and dangers of gambling. We cannot start at the end, with prohibition, with self-exclusion. Instead, a definitive remedy has been proposed. It's all or nothing. This negates all the accumulated knowledge about harm reduction policies. When will we talk about emotions, limits, psychoeducation, prudence, and above all, mental health? Educating about gambling does not mean encouraging its consumption or denying the complexity of the debate about individual rights and freedoms. It means offering information so that this freedom can exist consciously.
(*) Cristiano Costa, psychologist and knowledge director at EBAC – Brazilian Company for Support to Compulsives)
