Ban on betting ignores evidence and expands the illegal market.
Last Friday, the federal government published Provisional Measure No. 1.394/2026 (MP), which prohibits fixed-odds betting in the country. The decision was made hastily, without a regulatory, economic, or social impact study to support it, generating serious consequences that have been largely ignored by the government itself.
The first effect of the Provisional Measure is legal uncertainty. Created by Law 13.756/2018, the fixed-odds betting modality was regulated by Law 14.790/2023, the result of a project by the Executive Branch itself, sanctioned in December 2023. To operate in the country, companies underwent months of analysis by the Secretariat of Prizes and Bets (SPA), paid grants of R$ 30 million valid for five years, established headquarters in Brazil, set up compliance and anti-money laundering structures, and began operating in January 2025. Less than two years later, the same government extinguishes, through a Provisional Measure, the activity that it itself authorized.
The message goes beyond the sector. Any investor considering investing capital in Brazil must now realize that an activity that is legal today may cease to be so tomorrow. The choice of instrument exacerbates the situation. A Provisional Measure loses its effectiveness if it is not converted into law within 120 days, meaning that an entire market becomes dependent on a provisional rule by definition, even though its effects may be permanent, as is the case with the immediate suspension of new deposits, the removal of platforms from the air as early as the beginning of October, and the termination of authorizations within 30 days. Even if the Provisional Measure is not converted into law, these operations will hardly be resumed under the same conditions.
The second point is the weakness of the justification. The government argues that gambling is the main driver of household debt, but official figures do not confirm this claim. According to the SPA (Brazilian Society of Gambling Experts), 25,2 million Brazilians gambled in 2025, and the gross revenue of operators (GGR) totaled R$ 36,9 billion. This equates to an average loss of approximately R$ 1.460 per gambler per year, or R$ 122 per month, an expense to which it is difficult to attribute the country's record level of debt.
The president of the Central Bank himself, Gabriel Galípolo, pointed out other factors contributing to the problem in August. Of the 96 million credit card users, 52,8 million have debts in revolving credit or installment plans with interest. Private payroll loans grew by 145% in just over a year, with default rates rising from 5% to 6,7%. And the September Monetary Policy Report attributes the record commitment of income to the cost of credit, without mentioning the risks of gambling even once.
Regarding the claim that gambling is destroying families due to the risk of addiction, the seriousness with which gambling addiction should be treated is not in question. However, there is no robust study, conducted after regulation, that demonstrates that the disorder affects a significant portion of the population. The most solid national data is the LENAD III study from Unifesp, collected in 2023. At that time, the market was informal and favored illegality. There was no requirement for protection mechanisms, and even minors gambled freely. Even so, only about 0,8% of the population aged 14 or older presented scores compatible with a probable gambling disorder.
This scenario has changed. The regulated market has brought precisely the tools that were missing, such as the exclusion of minors, identity verification, the prohibition of credit use, and the obligation to monitor and intervene in the face of risky behavior. To prohibit now is to discard these instruments before even measuring their results.
The third point is fiscal. In 2025, according to SPA data, operators collected R$ 9,95 billion in federal taxes, of which R$ 4,5 billion were allocated to the areas of § 1-A of article 30 of Law 13.756/2018, with R$ 1,6 billion going to education and R$ 614 million to public security. Added to this are R$ 2,5 billion in concessions and R$ 95,5 million in inspection fees. In 2026, the total was R$ 9,9 billion from January to August, a 69% increase over the same period in 2025. Giving up this revenue in a country that struggles to meet its fiscal target is difficult to justify.
The impact is not limited to revenue. According to a study by LCA Consultores, the sector generated 15,5 direct and indirect jobs, which will disappear with the ban.
Furthermore, the Union will face a wave of lawsuits filed by operators. The approximately 85 authorizations granted total around R$ 2,5 billion paid for a five-year right now suppressed, an amount that will be claimed judicially along with investments made and lost profits. Even the sole paragraph of Article 4 of the Provisional Measure, according to which the extinction of authorizations stems from public interest and does not entitle the holder to the return of the grant or any compensation, is unlikely to contain this wave, since a provision of this nature will hardly remove the State's duty to compensate for losses suffered by those who invested trusting in the rules it itself established. The National Association of Games and Lotteries (ANJL) estimates, on a preliminary basis, that the compensation claims could reach R$ 120 billion. Whatever the final number, the taxpayer will foot the bill.
Finally, international experience shows that prohibition is not the answer. In mainland China, where gambling has been banned for over seven decades, except for state lotteries, the Ministry of Public Security estimated in 2020 that approximately 1 trillion yuan (US$145 billion) left the country annually for gambling abroad.
In Brazil, the TCU (Federal Court of Accounts) estimates that illegal operators already account for 41% to 51% of the betting volume, and the Finance Minister himself, Dario Durigan, warned in June that a general ban would create an illicit and uncontrolled market, since the bettor would not disappear. They would migrate to illegal websites, which have no commitment to the protections currently guaranteed to consumers. On these sites there are no deposit limits, age verification, or monitoring of risky behavior.
By prohibiting, through an executive order, an activity that the State itself structured, authorized, and charged for, the government compromises legal certainty, forgoes almost R$ 10 billion annually in taxes, exposes the Union to billions in compensation, and pushes millions of bettors, currently protected, back into clandestinity. If the model has flaws, the way forward is to correct them based on evidence. Abandoning it less than two years later, without even evaluating its results, is to exchange a manageable problem for a much larger one.
(*) Pedro Lacaz is a partner in the civil litigation area of Andrade, Lacaz e Vasconcelos Advogados
