The search term Lula bets surged on Google in Brazil on Thursday, September 24. The reason: President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has decided to shut down online betting companies in the country. According to press reports, the decision came out of a meeting with ministers at the Alvorada Palace on Wednesday, September 23, and the chosen instrument is a provisional measure (medida provisória), which could be signed as early as this week.
The announcement in Rio
Lula made the decision public on Wednesday night on stage at Fundição Progresso, in Rio de Janeiro, during a campaign event with artists. He told the crowd that the issue “is not a war, it is a decision.” Responding to pressure from club executives opposed to restrictions on the sector, the president said football clubs will have to find other sources of funding, pointing to the corporate club model (SAF) as an alternative.
Lula bets: total or partial ban?
For weeks, the government weighed two options. The first was a total ban, covering both online casinos, such as the popular “tiger game,” and sports betting. The second was a partial restriction, banning only online casinos and blocking or limiting betting advertising.
According to SBT News, Lula considered the middle-ground option but concluded by the end of the meeting that the problem had to be cut at the root, and the guidance became a provisional measure that also covers sports betting. Accounts of how settled the decision is differ: government members quoted by other outlets said the meeting was inconclusive and the team was split between a total ban and a more limited measure.
Update: the measure has been published — here’s the official timeline
Provisional Measure 1,394 was signed and published in a special edition of the Federal Official Gazette on Friday night (25). The text bans the operation, offering, intermediation and advertising of fixed-odds betting — both sports betting and online casino games — nationwide, and creates an Interinstitutional Committee to monitor illegal betting operations and advertising. The measure amends Law 14,790/2023, the same law that had regulated the sector.
According to the timeline announced by the Ministry of Finance:
- Immediately: new deposits and bets are banned as soon as the measure is published.
- Until 11:59 PM on October 5: bettors can voluntarily withdraw their remaining balance from the platforms.
- Starting October 6: betting sites and apps must go offline; Brazil’s telecom regulator (Anatel) and internet governance body (CGI) are expected to order the sites blocked nationwide.
- October 7–8: companies must report remaining balances, tied to each bettor’s tax ID, to the banks.
- October 9–14: banks return the funds in full; state bank Caixa may step in to handle returns in cases where this isn’t possible directly.
Betting advertising is affected too: no new advertising contracts are allowed, and existing sponsorship deals may continue only until October 5, after which betting ads and sponsorships can no longer be legally shown in the country.
Signing the measure, Lula called online betting companies a “cancer” and compared gambling addiction — known in Portuguese as “ludopatia” — to crack cocaine use, saying families are being destroyed by unpayable debt. Finance Minister Dario Durigan described the issue as a public health problem. As a provisional measure, the text is already in effect, but it must be approved by Congress within 60 days, extendable once by another 60, or it will lose validity.
How Lula’s offensive against the bets began
The escalation gained momentum in September. On the 14th, at an event at the Planalto Palace, Lula called betting a “disease” and promised a decision soon. On the 18th, at a campaign rally in Guarulhos, he described cases of people who ran up debts and faced extreme situations because of gambling. On Tuesday, September 22, he took the issue to the opening of the 81st UN General Assembly in New York, saying the betting industry turns addiction into profit and is plunging millions of households into debt.
The government had already been tightening rules on the sector. Since July, betting ads must carry mandatory warnings, and ads that create a sense of urgency or present betting as an investment are banned. Penalties include fines of up to 20% of revenue and license revocation for repeat offenders.
Reaction from clubs and the industry
The proposal faces strong resistance from football. Palmeiras, Flamengo, Corinthians, Santos, Botafogo, Fluminense and Vasco released a joint manifesto against “abrupt changes” to the market, warning that a ban could mean the “end of Brazilian football.”
Even within the government, a ban was not a consensus. Finance Minister Dario Durigan said on September 17 that he does not favor banning betting and that the debate should extend over the coming years. He estimates that R$ 62 billion flows from Brazilian households into betting, a figure disputed by industry specialists, who say it confuses the total amount deposited by bettors with the revenue companies actually keep.
Who legalized and who regulated betting
Sports betting was legalized in Brazil in 2018, under President Michel Temer (MDB), through Law 13,756. The law required the sector to be further regulated by a follow-up law within four years — a deadline that expired in December 2022, near the end of Jair Bolsonaro’s term, without regulation ever being issued. During that gap, foreign betting sites operated freely in the country, without oversight or taxation.
It’s worth remembering that Lula was not the one who legalized betting — that happened in 2018, under President Temer. It was Lula’s own government, however, that actually regulated the sector starting in 2023: in July of that year, the president issued Provisional Measure 1,182, which became Law 14,790/2023, signed in December. During its passage through Congress, the lower house added online casino games — such as the so-called “Tigrinho” slot game — to the regulated market; the Senate briefly removed that provision, but the lower house restored it before the final vote. Unlike sports betting, Tigrinho and other online casino games only became legal in Brazil precisely because of this 2023 regulation under Lula — they had no legal standing under the 2018 law. Also during the bill’s passage, a Senate amendment loosened advertising restrictions on betting during sports broadcasts that the lower house had originally proposed. Following the new rules, the number of companies authorized to operate in the country grew, and tax revenue from the sector totaled roughly R$ 19 billion over two years, according to official figures.
The provisional measure announced now, then, does not reverse a policy inherited from previous governments: it dismantles a market that the Lula administration itself expanded and regulated less than three years ago. Fact-checkers such as Aos Fatos and Nexo have already flagged as misleading the claim that Lula “created” betting in Brazil — but it would be equally inaccurate to say his government played no role in its growth, since it was under his watch that the market became larger, more regulated, and more profitable for the state before he moved to end it.
Update (Sept 26): Government sends WhatsApp alerts and a bill to Congress
On Saturday morning (26), the federal government began sending messages through Gov.br’s official verified WhatsApp channel urging anyone with money on betting sites or apps to withdraw it. The message reads: “We inform you that the Provisional Measure banning betting in Brazil has been published. If you have money on betting sites or apps, withdraw it by Monday, 10/05. If you cannot withdraw by that date, the betting companies will return your money through the banks by 10/14.”
Lula also sent Congress a bill toughening rules against the illegal betting market, defining crimes tied to fixed-odds betting with penalties of up to six years in prison. Separately, the federal government’s legal office (AGU) plans to go to court seeking to hold betting companies responsible for the debts of people who became over-indebted through gambling.
The Sports and Finance ministries have also scheduled a meeting with Serie A and B soccer clubs for Tuesday (29) to discuss the impact of losing betting sponsorships. Ideas under consideration include a credit line for clubs’ existing liabilities and another aimed at future sponsorships, since several teams are expected to lose contracts with betting companies that operated in the country.
The measure has drawn criticism from the opposition. Minas Gerais Governor Romeu Zema (Novo) called the ban an “electoral aberration,” and other critics argue the ban is contradictory, since it was Lula’s own government that regulated the sector in 2023 — a point covered in more detail earlier in this article. Betting industry groups and companies say they plan to challenge the measure in court.
The electoral weight
The decision comes ten days before the first round of Brazil’s presidential election. Lula’s allies had already been treating betting restrictions as a potential electoral asset, and the issue gained prominence as the race tightened. Critics see the measure as a campaign move; columnist Lauro Jardim, for example, expects its electoral impact to be limited. The government and supporters of the ban argue that the debt and addiction caused by betting justify a tough response regardless of the calendar.
The final text of the provisional measure will define the real scope of the ban. Until then, bettors, clubs and betting companies are waiting for the transition rules.
Legal and market pushback
The ban is already facing pushback on several fronts. Lawyers point to a unanimous 2020 Supreme Court ruling — which recognized states’ authority to run lotteries, including fixed-odds betting — as a possible legal loophole against Article 2 of the MP, which extends the ban to lotteries licensed by states such as Rio de Janeiro, Paraná and Paraíba. Experts consider an injunction before the election unlikely, but don’t rule out legal challenges down the road.
The market impact was immediate: according to one survey, 428 illegal betting sites appeared in the three days after the MP was published, filling the gap left by the 85 licensed companies — which had each paid R$ 30 million for five-year licenses, R$ 2.55 billion in total that the government has already said it won’t refund. Betting companies are organizing a R$ 12 billion compensation claim against the federal government. TV networks including Globo, ESPN and Band pulled already-booked betting ads off air, and companies such as Betano, Novibet, Superbet and Esportes da Sorte announced they were terminating advertising contracts.
On the political front, Flávio Bolsonaro criticized the ban by calling Lula the “father of Tigrinho” — a direct reference to the point covered earlier in this article: it was Lula’s government, not Temer’s, that regulated and expanded the betting market in 2023, including online casino games.
Desenrola 3.0: in the same package, Lula announces a debt buyback program
The same day he signed the betting ban, President Lula also launched Desenrola 3.0, the third phase of the federal government’s debt renegotiation program for individuals. Under the proposal, the federal government will buy, through auctions, portfolios of bank and non-bank debts of up to R$ 10,000 that are between 2 and 4.5 years overdue, with a minimum 90% discount — passed on in full to debtors, who can settle in cash or in installments on the remaining balance.
The government estimates it will invest around R$ 15 billion to buy up to R$ 150 billion in debt, benefiting as many as 15 million people. The first auctions are expected still in 2026, though disbursements aren’t expected to begin until 2027. “Household debt has become a serious problem in Brazil,” Lula said announcing the program, which arrives just days before the first round of the election.
On social media, the betting ban also generated some lighter fallout: influencer Rico Melquiades, who has advertised for betting companies in the past and testified before the Senate’s betting inquiry committee, announced the same day the MP was signed that he plans to leave Brazil and move to Portugal starting in October — a declaration that became a running joke online, with many users linking the move to the ban, though the influencer didn’t connect the two directly.
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