Numbers don't lie: research shows that demonizing betting doesn't win votes — but election rhetoric ignores the data.
With less than a month to go before the elections, online sports betting has become one of the favorite targets of Brazilian political discourse. Presidential candidates, senators, and deputies from opposing ideological spectrums have found a rare campaign consensus in attacking betting—from the PSTU to the Bolsonaro-supporting right wing, including President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), who is running for reelection. The problem is that poll numbers show a significant disconnect between the rhetorical bets of these candidates and what actually drives the Brazilian voter's decision.
More in Common/Ipsos-Ipec: 58% of the Brazilian electorate will not change their vote because of the bets.
The most robust survey on the topic is from More in Common in partnership with Ipsos-Ipec, conducted between July 4th and 8th with 2 people interviewed in person in 130 municipalities (margin of error of 2 percentage points). The central question was straightforward: would advocating for restrictions on betting change a voter's willingness to vote for a candidate?
The response dismantles the political strategy:
58 % say that a candidate's position on restricting bets would not change their voting decision;
24 % say they would be more willing to vote for someone who supports restrictions;
12 % would be less willing to vote for that candidate;
7 % did not know the answer.
Combined, the first two groups—indifference and rejection of the agenda as a voting criterion—reach 70% of the electorate. And the data becomes even more solid when looking within this group: according to BNLData's own findings from the survey, this pattern of 58% indifference remained stable across all segments analyzed—gender, age, education, family income, race, religion, and voting intention. The variations between these groups all remained within the margin of error. In other words, it's not a specific bubble effect within an electoral niche. It's transversal.
This doesn't mean the topic is irrelevant to public perception of the sector—quite the contrary. The same research shows an electorate with genuine distrust of betting: another survey cited in election coverage, by AtlasIntel (Latam Pulse Brasil), indicates that the vast majority of Brazilians see online betting as harmful to society, with Estadão reporting that 86,7% consider betting detrimental. Therefore, there is a real and measurable reputational deficit. What the data dismantles is the assumption that publicly criticizing betting translates into significant additional votes—image rejection does not automatically translate into an electoral reward for those who promise to restrict it.
Cruz Consulting/ANJL: Among beneficiaries of social programs, rejection of the issue as a voting criterion rises to 68,1%.
Released this Wednesday (September 9th), a survey by Cruz Consulting, commissioned by ANJL, interviewed beneficiaries of federal government social programs in the 39 cities of the São Paulo Metropolitan Region, on September 3rd and 4th. The choice of the interviewed public is not incidental: beneficiaries of social programs are precisely the group that political discourse and studies such as that of the TCU (which pointed to R$ 3,7 billion of Bolsa Família resources destined for gambling in January 2025 alone) place at the center of the argument against betting. And it is exactly in this group that the data dismantle part of the narrative:
⇒ 83,47% of respondents have never used sports betting platforms;
⇒ 12,63% have placed bets in the past, but no longer use the platforms currently;
Only 3,9% still use betting today.
Among those who had already gambled, the survey also measured how they left the regulated market: 5,49% were blocked by the federal government and 21,97% voluntarily requested self-exclusion. And this is where the most sensitive data from the survey for public debate appears: 20% of respondents who were removed from legal platforms —either by government blocking or voluntary self-exclusion— stated that they migrated to clandestine betting sites , which operate without any authorization from the Ministry of Finance. In other words: protection mechanisms that should keep people away from gambling, when applied without an equivalent policy to combat the illegal market, risk simply transferring the gambler to another platform—removing them from the regulated market, with its limits, alerts, and traceability, and pushing them towards operators without any control.
Regarding voting intentions, the survey specifically asked respondents who have already placed or still place bets whether a presidential candidate's position on authorizing or prohibiting bets would change their electoral choice. The result is even more compelling than the national average: 68,1% said that this position would not change their vote —10 percentage points higher than the 58% measured by More in Common/Ipsos-Ipec among the Brazilian electorate in general.
The convergence between two surveys with different methodologies, target audiences, and sponsors—one national and broad (More in Common/Ipsos-Ipec), the other focused on beneficiaries of social programs in Greater São Paulo (Cruz Consulting/ANJL)—reaching the same conclusion strengthens the finding: it is not statistical noise from a single survey, but a pattern that repeats itself and intensifies precisely among the public that candidates most claim to want to protect.
According to the president of ANJL, Plínio Lemos Jorge, the numbers call for caution against generalizations: “When we talk about indebtedness, we need to observe the numbers carefully and avoid generalizations. The indebtedness of Brazilian families is a complex phenomenon that cannot be automatically attributed to gambling. The research shows that the vast majority of beneficiaries of social programs interviewed have never used betting platforms.” Regarding the migration to the illegal market, he argued that the data “shows the importance of combining mechanisms to protect bettors with the permanent fight against clandestine platforms”—a direct message to campaign proposals that rely on prohibition or blocking as an isolated solution, without an equivalent policy of monitoring the clandestine market.
The election rhetoric, however, did not change.
Despite the data, the issue of betting has become a central campaign platform across virtually the entire political spectrum.
⇒ Lula (PT) , running for re-election, has hardened his tone in recent weeks. In a podcast interview on August 14, he said that "if no one shows him a social reason" for betting to continue, the government "has to put an end to it." According to a report by BNLData itself, the Presidential Palace even prepared a provisional measure against online betting under pressure from internal popularity polls—less than 30 days before the election—ignoring that, historically, prohibition pushes the activity into the illegal market instead of eliminating it.
⇒ Romeu Zema (Novo) posted on social media that "an industry cannot profit at the expense of the suffering of so many families."
⇒ Ronaldo Caiado (PSD) promised to curb advertising for betting and tighten oversight of financial transactions by betting houses and fintechs.
⇒ Augusto Cury (Avante) advocates taxing the sector by more than 50% to discourage activity, without specifying the final rate.
⇒ Fernando Haddad (PT) , in the race for governor of São Paulo, attacked his opponent Tarcísio de Freitas, saying that "Bolsonaro spent four years doing nothing about it, and it became an industry."
⇒ On the left of the spectrum, PSTU, PCB and Unidade Popular (UP) advocate for a total ban on the platforms — the first two add to this the proposal to expropriate the companies' assets.
According to a survey published by Folha de S.Paulo and replicated by BNLData, four of the main presidential candidates advocate a total ban on betting, without any of them explaining how the government would compensate for the fiscal loss.
The magnitude of what is at stake — and which no candidate explains.
This is where the imbalance becomes a fiscal contradiction. Revenue from the regulated sector totaled R$ 12,2 billion in 2025 — revenue from concessions (R$ 30 million paid by each of the 85 authorized companies), taxes, and contributions on an activity that generated R$ 220,6 billion and had a turnover of R$ 36,9 billion that year. None of the four presidential candidates who advocate for a total ban presented a plan to replace this revenue.
The contradiction becomes even more evident when looking within the very government that leads the harshest rhetoric against the sector: according to an analysis by BNLData, the same government that threatens to ban betting projects billions in revenue from it in the 2027 Budget — a comparison between the 2026 Budget Law (LOA) and the 2027 Budget Bill (PLOA) shows a 7,2% drop in the four specific budget lines for the sector, even with the increase in real revenue, in a move that makes the sector's participation less visible in public accounts precisely in the year when the campaign rhetoric is most hostile to it.
There is also a second contradiction, of a symbolic nature, raised in a recent editorial by BNLData itself: in 2025, Caixa's lotteries returned R$ 13,2 billion to society through social allocations, while betting operators returned R$ 14,45 billion to public coffers in taxes — a higher figure. Even so, only one of the two is treated as the villain by society, political actors, the media, and even the President of the Republic.
Why does the discourse persist even when contradicted by the data?
The research doesn't say that voters like betting—it says they don't vote for it. These are different things, and the difference matters in understanding why candidates continue to invest in this agenda even without proven electoral returns.
Low -risk consensus
Attacking the bets is a position that doesn't cost support from any relevant group identified in the research—no demographic segment showed a significant negative reaction. A discourse without apparent political cost tends to be repeated even with marginal gain, because the worst-case scenario (12% rejection) is still lower than that of any genuinely polarizing agenda.
⇒ Signage for specific bases, not for the majority.
Although the national average shows indifference, it is possible that the issue has disproportionate weight within organized niches — evangelical churches, consumer advocacy movements, mental health entities — that set the agenda for media coverage and political pressure even without representing the majority of the electorate.
⇒ Perception of crisis vs. electoral behavior
The fact that 86,7% view gambling as harmful creates a public opinion environment favorable to hardline rhetoric, even if that same opinion does not translate into a criterion for choosing a candidate — people may disapprove of gambling and still decide their vote entirely based on other factors (employment, security, health).
⇒ Pressure from short-term internal research
The case of the Presidential Palace, which BNLData reports link to the president's declining popularity, suggests that the electoral calculation behind the hardening of the discourse is more about image management during a time of fragility than about evidence of net vote gains.
A warning to candidates
The argument is simple, and the numbers support it: demonizing betting is not a winning electoral strategy—it is, at best, neutral, and carries a real fiscal and regulatory cost that no candidate has yet publicly quantified. Promising a total ban without explaining where the R$12,2 billion in revenue would come from is a gap that journalistic coverage—and, eventually, the more attentive voter—will likely point out as soon as the campaign promise needs to become government policy.
For the electorate, anti-betting rhetoric yields, at best, indifference. For the public treasury, it results in a fiscal deficit with no solution yet presented. Numbers don't lie—and, by all indications, they aren't swayed by campaign speeches either.
