Brazil Bans Online Betting: Deposits Stop, Sites Go Dark on 6 October

BRAZIL · ONLINE BETTING

Brazil’s government announced an online betting ban on Friday 25 September in São Paulo, nine days before the election. It outlaws online casino games and bets on real sporting events alike.

The tool is a provisional measure (medida provisória): a presidential decree with the force of law from the day it is published. Congress must approve it within 120 days, or it lapses.

What the government announced

Finance Minister Dario Durigan set out the timetable at the event. “From today, no more money can be put into betting sites in the country,” he said.

Sites stay open only so that bettors can withdraw what is left, until 23:59 Brasília time on Monday 5 October. From midnight on 6 October, app stores, internet providers and Brazil’s internet steering committee must block the sites and apps, g1 reported.

Operators must report each customer’s balance to their banks on 7 and 8 October. Banks then return unclaimed money in full between 9 and 14 October, and state bank Caixa steps in where that fails.

All betting advertising, online and offline, must come down by 23:59 on 5 October, as must sponsors’ brands. No new betting ads are allowed once the measure is published.

The measure appeared in an extra edition of the official gazette, the Diário Oficial da União, dated 25 September. As Provisional Measure 1,394, it took effect on publication.

Crimes cannot be created by provisional measure under Brazil’s constitution, so a separate bill goes to Congress. Its draft sets four to six years in prison for operating fixed-odds betting, even with a foreign licence, g1 reported.

The draft adds two to four years for betting advertising, for selling personal data to target bettors and for processing betting payments knowingly. Journalistic, educational and critical content is exempt.

What Provisional Measure 1,394 says

The text bans operating, offering, brokering and advertising fixed-odds betting in Brazil, online or in person. It also covers operators based abroad that offer bets to people in Brazil.

The ban applies to bets on real sporting events and on virtual online games. Other lotteries authorised by law are not affected, and fixed-odds licences granted by states also end.

Federal licences expire 30 days after publication. The text says operators get no refund, full or partial, of the licence fee they paid, R$30 million (about US$5.8 million), and no compensation from the state.

Operators must take their sites and apps offline ten days after publication. Bets not settled by then are void and refunded in full, while prizes on settled bets must be paid.

Operators then have two days to ring-fence the money owed and send their banks and the betting secretariat a list of what each bettor is owed, by tax number. Failing to do so brings a fine of R$200,000 (about US$38,600) a day until they comply.

Banks and payment firms then have seven days from receiving the lists to repay bettors in full, and money they cannot return goes to a special account at Caixa. They may no longer process betting transactions, including on instant-payment systems such as Pix, except to wind down and refund bettors.

Ads and sponsor logos must come down within ten days. Internet platforms must stop betting ads and app stores must drop betting apps. The justice ministry can fine them up to 10 percent of their group’s revenue in Brazil or, where there is none, R$10 to R$1,000 per user, limited to R$50 million (about US$9.7 million) per infraction.

Regulator Anatel will pass on site-blocking orders to internet providers.

Pending penalty cases under the 2023 betting law are suspended, and will be closed for good if operators meet all their exit obligations on time. A new inter-agency committee, coordinated by the president’s chief of staff’s office (Casa Civil), will oversee enforcement.

A US$7 billion market, licensed for under two years

Brazil legalised fixed-odds betting in December 2018, under President Michel Temer. Rules came only with a 2023 law signed by Lula, and the licensed market opened on 1 January 2025.

Each company paid R$30 million (about US$5.8 million) for a five-year licence. Some 85 companies hold one, running nearly 190 brands on websites ending in .bet.br.

In 2025 those sites kept R$36.96 billion (about US$7.1 billion) after paying out prizes, the finance ministry’s betting secretariat reports. That measure, gross gaming revenue, is in effect what Brazilian bettors lost.

The secretariat counted 25.2 million individual bettors, roughly one Brazilian adult in six. Online casino games, not football, bring in 70 to 80 percent of operators’ revenue, by industry estimates cited in Estadão.

The federal tax agency collected about R$9.95 billion (about US$1.9 billion) from betting firms in 2025. That includes a 12 percent levy on revenue, worth R$4.5 billion (about US$870 million), split among sport, tourism, security and other areas.

Dollar conversions use 5.175 reais per US dollar, the open.er-api.com rate on 25 September 2026.

Finance Minister Dario Durigan says the money will not decide the matter. “If it harms the people, the revenue is not justified,” he told the weekly CartaCapital.

Why Lula wants betting gone

Lula ties betting to household debt, which polls cite as one reason for his government’s low approval. Central Bank data show debt payments took a record 28.9 percent of household income in June.

That series began in 2011, and June’s reading is its highest. A Central Bank director said in early September that betting platforms are a “central element” in that squeeze, Folha reported.

Public alarm grew in 2024, when a Central Bank study looked at Bolsa Família, Brazil’s main cash-transfer programme for poor families. It found five million people in recipient families sent betting sites R$3 billion (about US$580 million) in August.

That equalled about a fifth of the programme’s payments that month. The federal audit court later warned that the study could not show the money came from the benefit itself.

“I discovered that betting is a disease,” Lula told a rally in Maceió on Thursday night. “I am going to end these bets before they end Brazil.”

At a rally in Guarulhos on 18 September, he said the state could live without the tax. “What I cannot lose is the lives of the poor who gamble,” he added, InfoMoney reported.

State finance secretaries’ committee Comsefaz, with the Celso Furtado centre (Cicef), estimates that bettors lost a net R$62.5 billion (about US$12.1 billion) in 2025. The industry disputes the method and points to the official R$37 billion.

Economists at the University of São Paulo’s Made research centre go further. Using Cicef data, they estimate that betting drained R$120 billion to R$141 billion (about US$23 billion to US$27 billion) from economic activity in 2025, Gazeta do Povo and Times Brasil reported.

That is 0.9 to 1.1 percent of GDP, by their count, because money lost to betting was not spent on goods and services. It is a model estimate that includes knock-on effects on spending, not a count of money bettors lost.

An election nine days away

The ban comes nine days before the first round of the presidential election, on Sunday 4 October. Lula is seeking a fourth term; his main rival is Senator Flávio Bolsonaro of the right-wing Liberal Party.

An Atlas/Bloomberg poll published on 23 September found 75 percent of Brazilians think online betting should be banned, Exame reported. Lula’s campaign now uses the slogan “Flávio é bet, Lula é o caminho” — “Flávio is a bet, Lula is the way.”

There is an irony. The licensing system Lula now wants to scrap was built by his own finance ministry, then led by Fernando Haddad.

He first floated a ban in October 2024, reported at the time as Brazil’s President Considers Online Betting Ban if Regulation Fails. Cities are moving too, as in Betting Advertising Ban Clears First Vote in São Paulo.

Industry and football push back

Nine industry associations issued a manifesto on Thursday titled “We Bet on Brazil.” They argue a ban would push players to illegal sites with no ID checks, no self-exclusion and no block on welfare recipients.

After the announcement, the Brazilian Institute for Responsible Gaming (IBJR), the National Gaming and Lotteries Association (ANJL) and licensed operators replied with a statement titled “To ban is not to protect”. Citing the finance ministry, they say 31 million people are active on licensed sites, and that unlicensed sites already take 41 percent of all money wagered.

Carlos Lima, who heads the IBJR, said operators will sue to recover licence fees and investments. The IBJR says its members hold 70 percent of the market.

Industry groups estimate that compensation claims against the state could reach R$120 billion (about US$23 billion). The figure is preliminary and not official.

More than half of the 20 top-flight football clubs have a betting firm as main shirt sponsor. Betting sponsors paid those clubs more than R$1 billion (over US$190 million) in 2025.

Sponsors including Betano, which backs Flamengo, have told clubs their contracts end automatically once the measure is issued, radio network CBN reported. Aides say help for clubs, such as cheaper credit, will likely come after the election.

Lula has brushed the warnings aside. “This is not a war, it is a decision,” he said at a campaign event in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday.

His rival Flávio Bolsonaro called the move “populist, hypocritical and electioneering”, Poder360 reported. He said that, if elected, he would ban online casino games such as “Tigrinho” (Fortune Tiger), a popular slot game, but signalled he would keep sports betting, g1 reported.

What comes next

The key dates for bettors are 5 October, the last day to withdraw, and 6 October, when sites go dark. Election day, Sunday 4 October, falls the day before the withdrawal deadline.

The measure took effect on publication. Congress has 60 days to vote, extendable by 60 more, and the count pauses during its year-end recess.

A final vote could therefore run into early 2027. Lawmakers can approve it, amend it — for example to keep sports betting — or let it lapse.

Court challenges are near certain. Operators say they will sue to recover licence fees and investments, although the text rules out refunds and compensation. The criminal bill still needs Congress.

Nor does the ban end illegal betting, which the authorities already fight site by site. More than 25,000 illegal betting sites were blocked between October 2024 and December 2025.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is the online betting ban already in force?

Yes. Provisional Measure 1,394 took effect on publication in the official gazette dated 25 September, so deposits are barred and sites must close ten days later.

What is a provisional measure?

It is a decree the Brazilian president can issue in urgent cases, with the force of law from publication. Congress must approve it within 120 days, not counting its recess, or it lapses.

Does it cover sports betting or only online casinos?

Both. The government says the ban covers online casino games and fixed-odds bets on real sporting events.

What happens to money bettors hold on licensed sites?

Bettors can withdraw until 23:59 on 5 October, and bets still unsettled when sites close are void and refunded in full. Unclaimed balances are returned through the operators’ banks, with Caixa handling cases that fail.

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