The bill regarding betting will be announced this Friday; Lula promises "Get ready" while ministers say the issue is still under evaluation.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is expected to announce this Friday (25), in São Paulo, the Provisional Measure that prohibits betting in Brazil. According to the newspaper O Globo, the Planalto Palace sent this Thursday morning (24) a preparatory document for an announcement of economic measures at 17 pm, at the Ministry of Finance office in the capital of São Paulo, two hours before a dinner Lula will have with about one hundred businessmen at the Tivoli Mofarrej hotel. The announcement comes nine days before the first round, with the president tied in the polls with Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ).

The Planalto Palace informed this Thursday afternoon (20) that Lula will present this Friday, at 17 pm, in São Paulo, “new measures to protect families and the popular economy”. In other words, the president will announce the expected provisional measure on the end or restriction of bets in Brazil, an electoral weapon just over a week before the first round. The event will take place at the Matarazzo Building.

The provisional measure should be accompanied by a package to combat household debt, including the purchase of old debts by the government and measures against what is considered abusive credit offers. Regarding gambling, Lula's aides report a planned ban on online casinos and fixed-odds betting. According to the Painel column in Folha de S.Paulo, an ally of the president states that the measure will be "very strong," and the most likely scenario is a total ban on online betting sites. The format is still under analysis and may combine the provisional measure with draft laws.

According to columnist Alicia Klein, from UOL, technical areas spent Thursday morning finalizing the text, which should prevent national or foreign operators from offering, mediating or advertising betting in the country. The publication may appear in an extra edition of the Official Gazette as early as Friday or, at the latest, on Monday (28). An assistant notes that the content is not yet fully finalized and that there will be further meetings until Friday.

exchanged signs

The economic team, however, avoided confirming the decision. At the entrance to the Ministry of Finance, Minister Dario Durigan dodged the question: “I'm not going to discuss bets now, because these are issues that we are still evaluating. The president should address this in the coming days.”

The Minister of Planning and Budget, Bruno Moretti, followed the same line. In the press conference for the Bimonthly Revenue and Expenditure Assessment Report, he said that the economic team is awaiting the decision to calculate the impact on revenues, which should only appear in the November report. "For now, there is no legal basis whatsoever to discuss this," he stated.

Moretti and Durigan were, alongside the Minister of the Civil House, Miriam Belchior, at the meeting on Wednesday (23) at the Palácio da Alvorada where, according to Estadão, Lula defended “cutting the evil at the root”. Two ministers present at the meeting told BNLData that there was no conclusion, but this version served to mislead the press: the decision to prohibit had already been made.

In practice, the government is preparing to eliminate an entire sector without having released any estimate of lost revenue. In 2025 alone, according to the Federal Revenue Service, betting companies collected approximately R$ 9,95 billion in federal taxes.

While ministers were dodging questions in public, the Planalto Palace was gathering the technical structure that a ban would require. According to the official agenda of the deputy secretary of the Prizes and Bets Secretariat, Fabio Augusto Macorin, a “government meeting” was held on the 4th floor of the Planalto Palace this Thursday (24). The agenda doesn't specify the topic, but the composition speaks for itself: in addition to Macorin and three other representatives from the Treasury, including the Undersecretary for Tax Affairs, the participants included the Executive Secretary and the Special Secretary for Legal Affairs of the Civil House, the area responsible for drafting provisional measures; the Executive Secretary of the Ministry of Justice; the National Secretaries for Consumer Affairs and Digital Rights; the Director of Combating Organized Crime of the Federal Police; a member of the Anatel board; the Director of Citizenship and Conduct Supervision of the Central Bank, Izabela Correa; the Executive Secretary of Secom; and a lawyer from the Union. These are precisely the bodies responsible for blocking websites, monitoring payment methods, suppressing illegal gambling, and defending the measure in court.

"Get ready"

While the ministers were evasive, the president went in the opposite direction. During a campaign walk through the center of São Gonçalo, in the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area, this Thursday, Lula again promised to end gambling. “My female colleagues, I’m going to end the betting. Get ready,” he said, accompanied by First Lady Janja da Silva, Rio de Janeiro gubernatorial candidate Eduardo Paes (PSD), and Senate candidates Benedita da Silva (PT) and Pedro Paulo (PSD). The day before, at an event with artists at Fundição Progresso, he had already stated: “This is not a war, it’s a decision.”

In São Gonçalo, Lula also targeted football. He criticized the clubs that, according to him, want to "place the burden of player salaries on the fans" and referred to the history of the national team: "In '70, in '94, in 2002. And there was no betting. After betting, they haven't won anything else."

The argument doesn't hold up to chronology. The national team also went without world titles in 2006, 2010, and 2014, before fixed-odds betting was legalized by Law 13.756 in December 2018. After the law, Brazil won the 2019 Copa América and the Olympic gold medal in men's football in Tokyo in 2021.

Tendency tightens in one week, with the election at the center.

The speed of the change is striking. On September 17th, Durigan stated that “no decision has been made.” The following day, government sources were still talking about banning only online casinos, such as the “Tiger Game,” and maintaining sports betting with more restrictions on advertising. As late as Wednesday, according to Globo and Painel, this milder option was considered the most likely. The turnaround, according to Folha, came from Lula's strategists' assessment that a total ban would have a strong impact on the current stage of the election race.

This shift also contrasts with the government's own trajectory. According to Folha, the Lula administration opposed banning the Tigrinho game and other online casinos in congressional votes, and the PT (Workers' Party) voted against an amendment that attempted to block them when the regulation of betting was approved in 2023. Last week, on the Desce a Letra Show podcast, Lula said he had a "personal disposition" to end gambling and compared betting to crack: "People are selling what they don't have, going into debt."

According to reporter Pedro Figueiredo of GloboNews, the Workers' Party campaign managed to "put the issue on the agenda" in the election. The committee believes that the bets and the readjustment of the Bolsa Família program were the tools used to regain control of the narrative, which was supposedly held by Flávio Bolsonaro. An AtlasIntel/Bloomberg poll released on Wednesday shows 75% of respondents in favor of the ban.

Behind the scenes, the calculation is explicit. An aide to the president described the measure to Globo as Lula's "last electoral gamble." Internal campaign surveys identified women in the Southeast region, especially single mothers or those with partners addicted to gambling, as the most affected by betting, a segment currently distant from the Workers' Party candidate. The bet is that the ban will bring Lula closer to centrist voters, undecided voters, and evangelical women, a group closer to Flávio.

This measure is in addition to others announced on the eve of the first round: an increase of approximately 15% in the Bolsa Família program, with the minimum value rising from R$ 600 to R$ 691, the distribution of slimming pens by the SUS (Brazilian public health system), and the decision that voting will serve as proof of life for retirees and pensioners of the INSS (Brazilian National Social Security Institute).

Flávio reacted. In a live broadcast on Wednesday with Governor Tarcísio de Freitas and Mayor Ricardo Nunes, he attributed the increased dependence on gambling to Lula and promised to ban online casinos, but not sports betting. According to columnist Milena Teixeira of Metrópoles, the statement bothered the Planalto Palace, and Lula's allies began to advocate for a total veto to differentiate the president from his opponent. The Workers' Party campaign, in turn, is exploiting old statements by the senator in favor of legalizing land-based casinos.

Criminal package

According to columnist Igor Gadelha of Metrópoles, the government intends to send to Congress, along with the Provisional Measure, draft laws that toughen penalties and create new crimes related to the promotion of illegal gambling. Currently, the Law of Criminal Offenses provides for simple imprisonment of three months to one year for the operation of illegal gambling. The Attorney General's Office and the Ministry of Justice are studying measures to prevent the clandestine market from taking over the space of authorized companies. The government itself thus recognizes the risk that the regulated sector has been pointing out for months.

Clubs and broadcasters in the crosshairs.

The consequences have already reached football and television. According to Rodrigo Mattos of UOL, Superbet notified São Paulo and Fluminense about the possible termination of sponsorships, and Esportes da Sorte did the same with Corinthians, which confirmed receipt. Betano did not send formal notification to Flamengo, but informed the board that a general ban would lead to the end of the contract. Thirteen of the 20 clubs in Série A have a betting company as their main sponsor, and the contracts total more than R$ 1 billion.

TV networks have also been warned. According to columnist Gabriel Vaquer of Folha de S.Paulo, Betano, Novibet, Superbet, and Esportes da Sorte notified Globo, Band, and RedeTV! about the possibility of terminating advertising contracts if the ban comes into effect. The sector is one of the largest advertisers on free-to-air TV: in August alone, according to Tunad, a company that monitors the advertising market, betting companies invested R$ 153 million in commercial breaks and sponsorship slots.

The broadcasters are already making moves. Record has decided not to renew its sponsorship deal with Betano for the reality show A Fazenda, which the company had held since 2021. Band, which sold the naming rights for the programs Jogo Aberto and Os Donos da Bola to betting companies, is evaluating what to do. The commercial departments of the broadcasters are already looking for advertisers in the market to replace the advertising slots.

The thread of hope

The game, however, is not over. The provisional measure has immediate effect, but it needs to be voted on by the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate within 120 days, or it will lose its validity. According to Metrópoles, industry entities are preparing amendments to the text through allied parliamentarians. They also believe that, after the election, a potential new Lula government would hardly relinquish the revenue and oversight structure established by the Prizes and Betting Secretariat itself.

Resistance isn't limited to the sector itself. The same aide who called the provisional measure a "last resort" admitted to Globo that there are doubts within the government itself about the scope of the measure, due to fears of legal uncertainty, losses in federal revenue, and the migration of bettors to illegality. These are precisely the arguments that regulated market entities have been repeating for months.

There is also the legal front. The operators paid a license to operate, and ANJL estimates, preliminarily, that compensation for a ban could reach R$ 120 billion. This amount contrasts with the government's plan to take legal action to force betting companies to compensate indebted bettors.

The Brazilian Institute of Jurisprudence and Innovation (IBJR), through its CEO, Carlos Lima, points out that the regulation is recent and was beginning to yield results. A study by LCA Consultoria indicates that the share of the illegal market fell from 41% to 51% in May 2025 to 38% to 44% a year later. According to these organizations, prohibiting the licensed market would be returning that space to clandestine operators, precisely the risk that the Attorney General's Office (AGU) is now trying to contain with harsher penalties.

Until the signing, the text may change. The sector expects this.

Update:

Lula bans betting and announces measures against family debt.

President signs executive order to ban online casinos and fixed-odds betting in Brazil, as well as a program to buy back old debts.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) will announce this Friday (September 25th), in São Paulo, a provisional measure to prohibit the operation of betting companies in Brazil. The event will also include measures against household debt.

According to Globo online, the announcement comes nine days before the elections and covers both online casinos and fixed-odds betting, a modality in which users bet on real events, such as football matches.

The decision was anticipated by the president himself on Thursday (September 24th), during a rally in Maceió. On that occasion, Lula said he would make “important announcements” and confirmed the measure against betting; “I will end betting. I will end betting before it ends Brazil and leads people to illness.”

Initially, the government discussed banning only online casinos , but the final decision was to extend the restriction to all types of online gambling , according to aides to the president. The Presidential Palace presented the event as "new measures to protect families and the popular economy."

Impact on clubs and family debt.

The ban is expected to reduce the revenue of football clubs sponsored by betting companies. To compensate, the government is likely to announce, probably after the elections, measures to support the teams, such as easier access to credit and debt relief. At the rally in Alagoas, Lula recalled that Brazil won World Cup titles before the existence of betting.

Another point of the package is a program to combat indebtedness, focusing on old debts, through which the government would buy these debts. "I will also announce other good things for society. I am concerned about the debts," Lula said on Thursday (September 24).

History of regulation

Betting was authorized in 2018, during Michel Temer's government, and operated without regulation until 2023, when a new law on the subject was approved. The regulated market only came into effect in 2025, after government regulation, analysis by the Treasury Department on authorized companies, and the payment of a R$ 30 million grant per license.

Even after regulation, the sector has faced increasing restrictions due to evidence of negative impacts on the population, including increased indebtedness. With the presidential race heating up in this year's elections, the debate over measures against gambling has gained additional momentum.

On Tuesday (September 22), in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly (UN), Lula had already declared that the platforms transform "addiction into profit" and are "destroying homes".

 

Entities in the betting sector are calling for more oversight, not a ban on the activity.