Banning doesn't solve anything: the Australian case that Brasilia should be watching.
Within that line of thought that all prohibitions are debatable and almost always useless, since they solve nothing, this is yet another example for betting regulators and political actors in Brasília to reflect on the risks involved in prohibiting sports betting and online gambling. Public authorities and society should think carefully before transforming the good intentions of honest citizens into new business opportunities for organized crime. Those who want to gamble and bet, but cannot do so legally, will seek it on the black market.
A recent example, albeit from another sector, illustrates this risk well. In December 2025, Australia implemented a pioneering law requiring a minimum age of 16 for the use of social media, under penalty of multimillion-dollar fines for the platforms. The measure had international repercussions and inspired similar initiatives in the United Kingdom and France. In theory, it was a model of rigorous public policy: heavy monitoring, robust financial sanctions, and support from other governments.
A report by Agence France-Presse (AFP), published by Globo Online under the title ' Reverse effect: use of social networks by minors increases in Australia after ban ', reveals that nine months later, the data tells a different story. A survey by Qustodio, a parental control software company, released this Wednesday (August 26), shows that the use of social networks by minors under 16 is growing again in Australia. There was, in fact, an initial drop immediately after the law came into effect — but the activity of young people on these apps is already approaching the levels recorded before the ban.
The numbers by platform reinforce this point. On TikTok, the reduction among teenagers aged 13 to 15 was only about 1 percentage point compared to the period before the ban. Among children aged 10 to 12, the drop was even more minimal. In other words, the formal ban practically did not alter the real behavior of the audience it was supposed to protect.
Even more revealing is the side effect: the use of WhatsApp by children has increased—precisely the app that was left out of the scope of the law. Yasmin London, an online security specialist at Qustodio, pointed to two possible hypotheses: children may be accessing these platforms through VPNs or hiding their age, or the restrictions simply aren't having the desired effect. In other words: the behavior doesn't disappear, it migrates—to workarounds or to corners of the internet that the law didn't reach.
This is precisely the pattern that is concerning when discussing the prohibition of sports betting and online gambling in Brazil. The illegal betting market already accounts for an estimated 38% to 44% of the total, according to LCA Consultores — even with the activity regulated and supervised by the SPA/MF (Brazilian Financial System). If a total ban were adopted, the most likely effect would not be the disappearance of demand, but its complete migration to platforms without any control, without revenue collection, without responsible gambling policies and, consequently, under the direct control of organized crime.
The Australian case doesn't address the same issue, but it teaches the same lesson: prohibitions that fail to consider the resilience of human behavior—and the ease of circumventing regulatory barriers in the digital environment—tend to produce results opposite to those intended. Before repeating this mistake in the field of gambling, it's worthwhile for Brasília to carefully observe what is already happening on the other side of the world.
