Banning gambling advertising strengthens the illegal market, five countries show.

While dozens of bills are being processed in the National Congress proposing to restrict or completely prohibit advertising on sports betting and online gaming platforms authorized by the federal government—and while the Secretariat of Social Communication (SECOM) of the Presidency and the Ministry of Finance signal support for advertising restrictions on betting—international experience has already produced a robust set of data on what happens when a country opts for total silence in the regulated market. The answer, according to a comparative survey published by the specialized platform iGaming Complete , authored by consultant Tonet Quiogue, partner at Arden Consult, is practically unanimous: the illegal market grows, and the legal market shrinks.

The trigger: a bill in the Philippines
The most recent case comes from the Philippines, where Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero introduced Bill No. 2347, the “Gambling Advertising Prohibition Act” (GAPA), on July 26, 2026. This bill bans gambling advertisements and sponsorships in any medium—radio, TV, print media, websites, apps, and social media—prohibits celebrity and influencer endorsements, and allows licensed operators to advertise only within their own platforms. Fines reach 500 Philippine pesos (approximately US$8,1), with penalties of up to three years in prison, license revocation, and deportation for responsible foreigners.

The problem, according to CiG's analysis, is that the Philippine proposal repeats a script already tested — and unsuccessful — in at least five jurisdictions.

Italy: the pioneer now retreating
Italy was the first country to test a total ban, with the “Dignità Decree” of 2018. Eight years later, the Italian illegal online gambling market is estimated at €20 billion annually—higher than the €11,47 billion of the legal market. A 2022 parliamentary investigation concluded that illegal gambling and gambling among minors continued to grow after the ban, the Italian Football Federation classified the measure as “largely ineffective,” and both the Senate and AGCOM (the media regulator) are already discussing easing it.

Belgium, France and the Netherlands: the same pattern
In Belgium, which adopted a near-total ban in July 2023, the number of players on illegal sites grew by 6% and deposits by 4% in just three months; the number of illegal operators targeting the country increased 4,4 times that year. France, which never licensed online casinos, now has 5,4 million players on illegal sites—more than the 3,5 million in the regulated market—with an estimated loss of €1,2 billion per year in taxes. Meanwhile, the Netherlands, which restricted non-targeted advertising and imposed deposit limits, saw the channeling rate (migration of gamblers to the legal market) fall to 49% in the first half of 2025.

United Kingdom: the counterpoint
The only case cited in the opposite direction is that of the United Kingdom, which maintains permitted gambling advertising under strict rules regarding content, time, and audience targeting—and retains approximately 98% of the online gambling market within the licensed system. According to the study's author, countries that "silence" the legal market end up with larger illegal markets; countries that allow the legal market to be seen, under strict rules, end up with smaller illegal markets. The difference is that the restriction of the British sector is only possible due to the maturity and high level of channeling of the online gambling market.

The Casino Plus case: the limits of oversight.
A Filipino incident from July 2026 summarizes the article's central argument. Actress Ivana Alawi, ambassador for the licensed operator Casino Plus, raffled off 100 smartphones valued at over 4 million Philippine pesos to those who liked the company's Facebook page. The regulator PAGCOR fined the operator 1 million pesos for the promotion without prior approval.

The point raised by the analysis is that this oversight is only possible because Casino Plus is licensed—it has the equivalent of a CNPJ (Brazilian tax ID), brand, and license to lose. None of the more than a thousand illegal platforms identified by the Philippine Cybercrime Commission (CICC) are subject to the same type of sanction; the regulator can only request the blocking of domains, which multiply into mirror images as soon as they are taken down.

Roland Cinco, an executive in the affiliate marketing sector, described the ongoing side effect: content creators are not abandoning the category, but have started charging more to partner with operators in the illegal market—who absorb this "risk premium" with a cash flow surplus that licensed operators, subject to taxation and compliance, do not have.

Why the parallel with tobacco doesn't entirely hold up.
Both the Philippine proposal and part of the public debate in Brazil use the analogy of cigarette advertising. The CiG article points out a key difference: all cigarettes—legal or smuggled—represent the same health risk, so banning their advertising does not deprive the consumer of any relevant safety information. In gambling, however, licensed and illegal platforms differ in virtually every dimension that matters to the gambler: age and identity verification, games with independent audits, deposit and loss limits, and—crucially—self-exclusion mechanisms.

A study of 22 OECD countries, conducted by Saffer and Chaloupka, showed that advertising bans only reduce consumption when they simultaneously shut down all channels; partial bans merely shift the marketing budget to the channels that remain open—in the case of betting, these are mostly digital and outside national jurisdiction.

What this means for Brazil
The parallel with the Brazilian reality is direct. Data released last week by the new study “Sizing and combating the illegal betting market in Brazil”, conducted by LCA Consultores and with data guided by the research “Incidence of illegal gambling in BrazilStudies by the Locomotiva Institute already indicate an estimated illegal market share of between 38% and 44%, even with the regulatory framework in place since 2025 and the precautionary measures underway against unauthorized operators.

The bills currently being processed in Congress — which propose everything from specific restrictions to an unrestricted ban on advertising — and the signals from SECOM (Special Secretariat for Social Communication) and the Ministry of Finance to curb the exposure of betting sites, essentially replicate the logic of the Philippine GAPA (General Access to Information Administration): removing the licensed market's main channeling tool, without any equivalent instrument against the illegal market, which continues to advertise through social networks, closed groups, and influencers beyond the reach of national oversight.

The experience of Italy, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands suggests that the most likely outcome of a broad ban is not a reduction in gambling, but a reduction in the portion of gambling that the state can see, tax, and monitor—with the added problem that bettors excluded or protected by regulated market mechanisms (such as self-exclusion lists) would lose precisely those protections by migrating to unlicensed operators.

Gambling exists as a social and economic phenomenon. The real question is not whether it should exist, but who governs it—the State or illegality. Every time the debate about gambling and betting resurfaces in Brazil, it tends to be divided between two extremes: legalization or prohibition. “Regulation is governance: when the State is absent, illegality takes its place.”