Lula renews call for betting shutdown in Brazil as government weighs further action

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has renewed his criticism of online betting, saying he would personally favour closing betting companies, while stopping short of announcing a formal change to Brazil’s regulated market.

Speaking during a live broadcast to supporters on Sunday 13 September, Lula said he had met eight people affected by online betting and was considering what further action the government should take. He did not announce a draft law, decree, provisional measure or timetable for additional restrictions.

Lula referred to serious debt and gambling-related harm, citing the case of a bettor who he said made 1,400 Pix transfers in three months. He questioned whether the Central Bank should have detected unusually frequent payments to the same company and described the growth of betting as “uncontrollable”.

The intervention builds on comments Lula made in August, when he said online betting should end unless the sector could demonstrate a social purpose. At the time, he acknowledged that any move to close the market would face resistance in Congress, where he said a pro-betting caucus had influence.

On 1 September, Lula said the government might need to take a “more drastic decision” on online betting after meeting civil-society, child-protection, health, commerce, economic, cultural and religious representatives at the Planalto Palace. Betting-sector companies and representative bodies were not included in the meeting.

Meanwhile, CNN Brasil has reported that the Civil House is coordinating discussions on a possible provisional measure imposing further restrictions on betting. No text has been published, and the government has not formally confirmed that it will issue a measure or defined what it would cover. Reports have most consistently indicated that online casino-style games, including slots and crash games, could be affected.

Lula’s remarks come after the government expanded exclusions within the regulated market. Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said in August that more than five million people had been prevented from betting, restricted or voluntarily excluded through a combination of self-exclusion, restrictions affecting Bolsa Família and Continuous Cash Benefit recipients, and exclusions connected with federal debt-renegotiation programmes. The total was equivalent to about 12.5% of the 40m active CPF records in the Betting Management System, or SIGAP.

SIGAP is the supervisory system operated by the Ministry of Finance’s Secretariat of Prizes and Betting for the regulated market. It enables licensed operators to cross-check customers’ CPF taxpayer numbers against federal databases and prevent eligible individuals from opening or retaining betting accounts.

In an official update on 20 August, the Ministry said the exclusion module had blocked more than three million people since its launch in October 2025, including beneficiaries of Bolsa Família, the Continuous Cash Benefit programme, the Student Financing Fund and federal debt-renegotiation schemes.

Health Minister Alexandre Padilha has also argued that betting should be approached as a public-health issue comparable to tobacco, advocating lower advertising exposure and stronger safeguards for minors. Padilha said in early September that more than 1.2m people had used the centralised self-exclusion platform in its first eight months, with more than half reporting mental-health difficulties and loss of control over gambling.