Brazil’s government is planning new restrictions and taxes on betting businesses, soon after legal ordinances limiting advertising and marketing activity came into effect in July.
The federal government’s push to further restrict Brazil’s regulated betting market also comes amid debate around gambling at the Supreme Federal Court, with the 1946 ban potentially facing the chopping block.
Lula’s push against gambling continues
Citing Brazilian media, SBC Noticias Brasil reports that the government has already finalised a new decree. The decree is awaiting technical evaluation by the Ministry of Finance, which oversees regulated online betting via its Secretariat of Prizes and Bets (SPA).
According to the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper, the restrictions will be published next week.
It is unclear what exactly the restrictions will be.
Measures backed by SPA include a five-second interval between each bet, the prohibition of autoplay betting, and sound effects that encourage betting activity.
The decree has reportedly been the subject of discussion between the office of President Lula da Silva and the SPA, as well as the National Secretariat for Digital Rights (SEDIGI), the Consumer Protection Secretariat (Senacon), the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, and the Secretariat for Social Communication (SECOM).
This marks the latest move in President Lula’s campaign to roll back Brazil’s gambling industry. Although the President approved the ‘Bets Law’ in late 2024, creating the regulated market as of 1 January 2025.
Since the market’s launch, Lula has lambasted online gambling licences, branding them a predatory to Brazilian families and targeting the nation’s poor and those on welfare assistance – that the president believes should be excluded from participation.
Of note, the Bets regime was launched on an unsettled regulatory framework, unfinished on the key provisions of compliance, safer gambling, consumer protection and advertising.
2025 proceedings saw the structure of the market change due to the prohibition of sign-up offers/incentives. Furthermore the launch year concluded with the Senate agreeing to impose a new tax plan on GGR to increase taxes from 12-to-18% by 2028.
And on the topic of tax, Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT) government wants to add another one for betting companies. SBC Noticias Brasil reports that the government is looking to include fixed-odds sports betting companies under its Tax Reform programme, expected to come into effect in 2027.
This will see betting companies subject to the ‘Selective Tax’, a new type of tax created by the Tax Reform. Betting would be categorised similarly to cigarettes, with a duty placed on the industry due to the risks of addiction – something some people may call a ‘sin tax’.
With Brazil’s Congress having returned from the winter recess period, Lula’s government is pressing ahead with its ambition to overhaul the Bet’s framework. Bill PL 2,258/2026, introduced on 7 May with the aim of banning online casinos, is high on the agenda.
Supreme Court debate contradicts Lula’s crusade
Developments in the Supreme Court contrast sharply with what is going on in the halls of Congress and in the office of the President.
While Lula is looking at how the industry can be restricted, the Supreme Court appears to be doing the opposite, examining whether a decades-old ban on land-based casinos should be overturned.
Decree-Law No. 9,215/1946 was, as its title suggests, passed in 1946. The legislation was pushed forward by then-President Eurico Gaspar Dutra, who held the office from 1946-1951.
The Decree banned gambling across the country, with a particular focus on casinos due to these being the main form of gambling at the time, and set up a strict system of criminal sanctions against people running gambling operations.
The Supreme Court is now evaluating whether the decree is compatible with modern market dynamics. Firstly, to state the obvious, the advent of the internet means that online betting and gaming is not covered under the legislation.
This led to Brazil’s online betting market being a huge grey one for many years until it was regulated under the Bets law. The same may happen for land-based casinos, depending ont the Supreme Court’s decision.
In the debate around the 1946 decree on Wednesday 5 August, the Supreme Court largely focused on whether the decree goes against the principles of free enterprise and economic order, as well as the fundamental freedoms of Brazilians.
As expected, the scope of the debate ended up a lot wider than this though. Flávia Raphael Mallmann, a lawyer with the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Rio Grande do Sul, argued that the criminalization of gambling is a moral judgement about protecting citizens, and not a criminal one.
Gustavo da Silva, a public defender from the Federal Public Defender’s Office (DPU), cited concerns about online gambling’s impact on vulnerable groups – aligning with the viewpoint of Lula’s federal government – and questioned whether effectively legalising land-based casinos by repealing the decree would exacerbate this.
An opposing view came from Alessandra Martins Gonçalves Jirardi, a representative of the National Association of Mayors and Deputy Mayors of the Federative Republic of Brazil (ANPV).
Jirardi argued that the gambling ban goes against the principles of freedom, pluralism, and free enterprise outlined in Brazil’s constitution. She also cited that gambling is being carried out legally in Brazil via federally authorised companies under the Bets regime.
This is the fundamental contradiction in Brazilian gambling law – a ban on gambling dating back to 1946 coexists at the same time 2024 law which legalised online betting, while the government is pushing to amend the latter to ban online casinos.
As stands the matter of the Bets Law future will likely be settled by bargaining and horse trading as the Congress and Senate, as Brazil political blocs prepare for General Election in October.
Thus far, the Bills that have passed to Congress call for a ban on online casino, a full-repeal of the market and one containing the prohibition of advertising and sponsorships – as circumstance look dire for existing licences