Women gamble to pay bills and are the most impacted by gambling in Brazil.
More than half of Brazilian women have already been impacted by the rise of gambling, either as gamblers themselves or as indirect victims of addiction in partners or family members. A study released this August reveals that 42% of these women gamble or have gambled in the past, while another 12% who have never gambled report bearing the consequences of someone else's problem.
The data comes from the "Women & Bets" survey, produced by Clarice, a research studio on women and power, in partnership with the Instituto Estratégia Latina and the Instituto de Pesquisa IDEIA, and was reported by Folha de S.Paulo. The research combined 20 qualitative groups with 60 participants and a national survey with 2.008 respondents, conducted in July 2026.
The most striking finding is that of mothers; women with children gamble about 1,6 times more than those without children. For Beatriz Della Costa, co-founder of Clarice and one of the spokespeople for the study, the central motivation is not entertainment. “The women who gamble, the mothers who gamble, don't gamble to be like Virginia, as people seem to think,” she says, referring to the influencer known for her multi-million dollar contracts with betting platforms. “They gamble to pay for their birthday cake, to eat at a Japanese restaurant, to order delivery, to buy school supplies. It's like a third income.”
Financial pressure as a driving force
The researcher links the spread of online gambling among mothers to the moment when these platforms gained scale in the country. Online gambling was legalized in Brazil in 2018, grew during the Covid pandemic, and captured more than R$ 10 billion from Brazilian families for the first time in 2021, according to the consulting firm H2 Gambling Capital. During this same period, women faced loss of income, employment, and stability. "Online gambling arrived very much at that moment, when the pandemic began, and offered this very easy way to quickly earn money, as a supplement to income," says Della Costa.
Between 2019 and 2025, without advertising regulations or addiction prevention mechanisms, influencers promoted slot machines on social media as a source of extra income, often accompanied by false winning strategies. Traditional media avoided the sector due to reputational risk, which made social media the dominant channel for advertising gambling.
Psychiatrist Aderbal Vieira Júnior, head of the behavioral addiction clinic at Proad (Program for Guidance and Assistance to Addicts) at Unifesp, connects the phenomenon to a change in the social role of women. “As women also enter this profile of being the person who has to provide something, earn some money, they will also pursue gambling with this function,” he states. He notes, however, that not all use becomes problematic. “Use is growing, problematic use is also growing, but not all use is a problem,” he points out.
Stories of loss
Bianca Araújo, 38, from Santa Catarina, learned about gambling at the end of the pandemic through her ex-husband and social media. Between 2021 and 2023, she lost her marriage, savings, and home. “The total loss was over R$ 500 in cash. I took out loans using both my business tax ID and my personal tax ID. We had a pickup truck, a Ford Ranger, and we sold it for R$ 210. In one week, we spent R$ 150. It's a real addiction, it's madness,” she recounts.
Araújo started with sports betting, believing he could turn gambling into income, and spent 2021 alternating between wins and losses while maintaining a business selling courses. By the end of 2022, losses had taken over. After a relapse in mid-2023, when he lacked money for rent, he decided to stop. He has remained abstinent for three years. "I had many panic attacks, I felt pain in my body. My heart raced with worry," he recalls.
Another affected family is that of administrative assistant Viviane, 49, from São Paulo. Her 23-year-old daughter started gambling about five years ago after losing her job, encouraged by colleagues. The situation worsened in 2025 when the young woman borrowed money from a loan shark she met online. Unable to repay the debt, the man obtained the family's data and address and began making demands for payment. “I was desperate. I had to talk to my boss right away, I took the money and gave it to him to pay the loan shark,” says Viviane.
The solution came in 2026, when the young woman's brother discovered it was possible to block her CPF (Brazilian taxpayer ID) to prevent access to the platforms and advised his sister to do the same. "That's when we were able to start having peace, and then she stopped for good," says Viviane. Her daughter has been without gambling for about five or six months, but the family is still paying off remaining debts of approximately R$ 5.000.
Digital casinos and restrictions
Clarice's report indicates that mothers report less shame when gambling than women without children, but the emotional cost increases when the problem worsens. "They feel more ashamed because they are jeopardizing the role assigned to them. They feel like they are failing, even as mothers," says Della Costa.
The study recommends that regulatory restrictions prioritize digital casino games over sports betting. This modality is the most used by women and, according to the researcher, the one that most favors the development of addiction because of the immediate return. “Sports betting has a longer process. You place the bet and wait for the game to happen. Online casino is much faster, much more accessible, and is a much quicker gateway to addiction,” explains Della Costa.
In a statement, industry associations, such as ANJL (National Association of Games and Lotteries), argue that government-authorized websites have mechanisms to block access for dependents and face unbalanced competition from illegal betting sites, which do not pay the R$ 30 million license fee or assume regulatory costs.
According to Della Costa, restrictive measures already adopted, such as the mandatory interval between bets, reduce the problem without eliminating it, because they do not address its root cause. “It’s not about being in a game. If she’s already very skilled, she’ll open another link, and another, and another,” she says. The researcher argues that any institutional response must include investment in addressing the financial pressure that has pushed these women onto these platforms. “What our data reveals is: it’s not about getting rich, it’s about having a dignified life,” she summarizes.
