Wellington Dias admits that the ban doesn't end the game: "the games exist, whether formally or illegally."
The Minister of Development and Social Assistance, Family and Fight against Hunger, Wellington Dias, was invited to defend the ban on betting and ended up repeating the arguments of those who oppose it. In an interview with Podnews, on SBT News, he did not answer whether Provisional Measure No. 1.394/2026 was the right decision. He also admitted that gambling continues to exist illegally and that the government cannot prevent Brazilians from betting on foreign platforms.
The question was direct. The interviewer recalled the discussions in Congress and the actions in the Supreme Federal Court (STF) against the ban. She also cited the public hearing conducted by Minister Luiz Fux, in which representatives of football clubs compared betting to cigarettes: harmful, but not prohibited, only regulated and with warnings on the packaging. And she asked if prohibiting it "was the appropriate thing to do, was the ideal thing to do," or if there was still room for dialogue and modulation.
Senator before becoming a minister.
Before answering, Wellington Dias made a point of introducing himself: “I am in the Ministry of Social Development, at the invitation of President Lula, but due to the trust of the people of Piauí, I am a senator.” The clarification marks a distance. Instead of speaking as Lula's minister, he positioned himself as a politician with his own mandate.
He then let slip that the issue divided the government: "And I got involved in this debate strongly, because there's a problem: gambling exists, whether formally or illegally."
The sector's argument, delivered by the minister.
The phrase summarizes what the regulated sector, representative entities, and BNLData have been repeating since the enactment of the Provisional Measure: gambling is either legal or illegal; not gambling is impossible. Prohibition doesn't end betting. It only removes the bettor from an environment with CPF (Brazilian taxpayer ID), age verification, limits, and protection channels, and takes them to websites without any control.
The minister went further and acknowledged that the state has no way to monitor: “Secondly, gambling also exists in other countries. And today, how can we control communication networks to prevent people from gambling in other countries? Someone on their cell phone could be gambling in Miami.”
This is an admission, by a high-ranking official, that the ban pushes bettors into the illegal and foreign market. This market does not collect taxes, does not finance the legal beneficiaries of Law No. 14.790/2023, and offers no protection to the consumer.
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"Anyway"
After listing the problems, the minister concluded: “So this debate stems from that principle. In any case, I supported the proposal to suspend it.”
The phrase "in any case" makes it clear that the support came despite the arguments he himself presented, and not because of them. The verb is also noteworthy. Dias speaks of "suspending," but Provisional Measure 1.394 prohibits fixed-odds betting, and the government is still preparing a bill to criminalize the activity. Suspension suggests something temporary and reversible, precisely the modulation hypothesis that the interviewer raised and that the minister did not rule out.
He also didn't comment on the comparison with cigarettes. The silence is significant, because the thesis was already his. In 2024, Wellington Dias advocated for treating betting similarly to tobacco and alcohol, with time limits for advertising and warnings about the risk of addiction. He also proposed that betting companies directly cover the costs of treating addicted gamblers. With the ban, this source of revenue ceases to exist.
The protection that the minister himself created.
It was Wellington Dias who announced, in 2024, the blocking of Bolsa Família cards at betting sites. This measure accompanied the broader prohibition of credit card use for online betting, with a zero limit for the program's card. The blocking only works with authorized operators that comply with the rules of the Secretariat of Prizes and Betting (SPA/MF). On illegal websites, which the minister admits he cannot control, this protection does not exist.
The “frightening data”
On the day the provisional measure was issued, September 25th, in Palmas, the discourse was different. Dias stated that Lula's decision was based on data about the effects of gambling on the health and social situation of families, and did not directly answer the question about issuing the measure on the eve of the first round of voting.
This data was never presented. In response to requests under the Access to Information Law (LAI) from BNLData, the SPA/MF and the Center for Tax and Customs Studies (CETAD) of the Federal Revenue Service reported that there are no impact studies on the prohibition. The Ministry of Planning and Budget and the Civil House responded evasively, and the government imposed secrecy on the documents that would have supported the Provisional Measure.
The architect of a measure that he himself weakened.
The interview takes on political weight because Wellington Dias has become a candidate for the Secretariat of Institutional Relations (SRI), responsible for the government's political coordination. If appointed, it will be up to him to negotiate the approval in Congress of a provisional measure whose premise he publicly contested: that prohibition solves everything.
In the Podnews interview, the minister stated that gambling continues to exist, that cell phones take gamblers to "Miami," and that he supported the ban "in any case." It's difficult to find a stronger argument against Provisional Measure 1.394 coming from within the government itself.
