Brazil’s Gambling Contradiction: Why Politicians Support Sports Betting But Oppose Casinos

Can a politician be against gambling and in favour of betting at the same time? In Brazil, the answer is yes, and the position is not even considered unusual. If you operate, invest or advise in this market, that contradiction is the single most useful thing to understand about Brazil gambling regulation right now, because it tells you exactly which parts of your revenue mix are politically safe and which are not.

Flávio Bolsonaro’s comments in late September gave the clearest recent illustration. What follows is a practical way to read this kind of statement: five steps that take you from a campaign soundbite to a defensible view of where Brazilian policy is heading.

Step 1: Read what was actually said, not the headline

During a livestream on 23 September, presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) attacked Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government over the expansion of online gambling, then immediately carved out an exception for sports wagering. His words: he is against gambling “in any form”, but bets on real matches “have some kind of control”.

On online casino, he was blunter. Pointing to the “Tigrinho” games that have become Brazilian shorthand for online slots, he said they are “ruining everyone” and leaving people in debt, and concluded: “online casino has to end.”

He also assigned blame for the market’s existence, saying Lula “plays dumb, but he liberated them and regulated them during his government”, according to a report by UOL.

Three things are worth separating here. First, there is a moral claim (all gambling is bad). Second, a regulatory claim (sports betting is verifiable, casino games are not). Third, an electoral claim (the other side did this). Only the second is a policy argument, and it is the one operators should engage with, because it is the one that survives after the campaign ends.

Step 2: Map Brazil’s legal framework vertical by vertical

The contradiction is not Bolsonaro’s invention. It is written into Brazilian law, which treats each gaming vertical as a separate question with a separate answer.

Sports betting legalization timeline

Fixed-odds betting on sporting events was legalized in December 2018 under Law 13,756, signed during Michel Temer’s presidency. That law created the legal category but left the details to be defined later, and successive governments let the deadline drift. For roughly five years the market operated in a grey zone: offshore-licensed sites took Brazilian deposits, sponsored top-flight football shirts and paid no Brazilian gaming tax.

Law 14,790 of December 2023 closed that gap. It set the licensing terms, the tax treatment (a levy of 12% on operators’ gross gaming revenue), player protection rules including a ban on credit card deposits, and advertising restrictions. Licences run five years and cost R$30 million, covering up to three brands per operator, with oversight sitting at the Prizes and Betting Secretariat (SPA) inside the Ministry of Finance. The licensed market went live at the start of 2025.

The point that campaign rhetoric consistently misses: Lula’s government did not create Brazilian sports betting. It inherited a legal category created in 2018 and finally wrote the rules for it.

Casino and gaming restrictions

Land-based casinos are a completely different legal story. They have been prohibited since Decree-Law 9,215 of 1946, the Dutra decree, which also swept away bingo halls. Eighty years later that ban is still the operative law. Bill PL 2,234/2022 would legalize casinos, bingo, jogo do bicho and horse racing betting; the Chamber of Deputies approved it in 2024, and it has been stuck in the Senate ever since, repeatedly scheduled and repeatedly shelved.

Online casino games occupy the strangest position of all. They are legal, but only because the 2023 fixed-odds framework and the Finance Ministry’s implementing rules brought virtual gaming into the same licence as sports betting. Slots and live dealer tables are permitted on a licensed website while a physical roulette wheel in a Rio hotel is a criminal matter.

Step 3: Understand why regulators split the verticals in the first place

Strip out the politics and there is a real regulatory logic behind the divide. It rests on three arguments, and each one is only partly true.

Verifiability. A football match is a public event with an independently observable result. A slot spin resolves inside an operator’s software using an RNG that the player cannot see. Regulators can audit RNG certification and RTP, but supervision is technical rather than public, which makes online casino harder to defend in a soundbite. This is the substance of Bolsonaro’s “some kind of control” line.

Speed of play. This is the stronger argument, and it is behavioural rather than moral. A sports bettor might place a handful of wagers over a weekend. A slot or crash game player can complete hundreds of rounds in an hour, each one carrying the game’s house edge. At a 96% RTP, the theoretical cost is 4% of every amount staked, and staking turns over far faster on casino products. Same house edge, radically different exposure per hour.

Revenue and constituency models. Sports betting arrived attached to football clubs, broadcasters and a visible sponsorship economy. Land-based casinos promise tourism, construction and regional jobs, which is why the integrated resort argument keeps resurfacing in Congress. Online casino has neither: no stadium, no resort, no local employment story. It is the vertical with the weakest political constituency, which is precisely why it is named first when someone wants to look tough on gambling.

Step 4: Follow the political incentives, not the moral argument

The gambling legalization debate in Brazil has become electorally useful, and that changes how statements should be read. Reports of household over-indebtedness, and central bank analysis of money flowing from low-income recipients into betting accounts, gave the issue a ready-made narrative about vulnerable families. “Tigrinho” became a household word and, conveniently, a target that no organised lobby will publicly defend.

Sports betting is a harder target. Attacking it means attacking football sponsorship, which touches clubs, fans and broadcasters. Conservative evangelical voters are hostile to gambling in the abstract but not noticeably mobilised against a Sunday match bet. So a candidate gets the best of both: condemn casinos, praise “controlled” wagering, and blame the incumbent for the regulation that in fact brought a previously offshore market onshore.

Casino expansion in Brazil is stuck for the mirror-image reason. It has commercial backers with real money behind it, and an equally organised religious and social bloc against it. That produces a bill that can pass one chamber and then sit indefinitely in the other.

Step 5: Price this into your Brazil plan

For operators and investors, the practical conclusions are fairly narrow.

1. Treat the sports betting licence as durable and the online casino permission as conditional. Brazil sports betting is now a taxpaying, sponsoring, employing industry with federal oversight; unwinding it is expensive and unpopular. Online casino sits on the same licence but has none of that protection.
2. Model tighter casino rules rather than prohibition. The realistic downside scenarios are product-level restrictions: advertising curbs, deposit and stake limits, mandatory affordability checks, tighter payment rules. Full withdrawal of online gaming from the fixed-odds framework would require primary legislation and would hand the market back to offshore sites overnight, an argument the Finance Ministry has every reason to make.
3. Do not assume land-based legalization is close. PL 2,234/2022 has survived years of scheduling without a Senate vote. Capital allocation decisions should not depend on it.
4. Diversify revenue by vertical, not just by geography. A book that is 80% online slots in Brazil carries political risk that a balanced sportsbook does not.
5. Get ahead on player protection. Whatever happens in 2026, operators who already run deposit limits, self-exclusion and reality checks are arguing from a better position than those who wait to be told.

The uncomfortable truth is that the regulatory distinction Brazilian politicians draw is not really about verifiability, and it is not really about morality either. It is about which vertical has friends. Online casino currently has the fewest, and until the industry builds a credible harm-reduction story, it will keep being the first thing offered up when a campaign needs a villain.

Frequently asked questions

Why does Brazil allow sports betting but not casinos?

Because they sit under different laws. Fixed-odds sports betting was legalized in 2018 and regulated in 2023, while land-based casinos remain banned under a 1946 decree that Congress has never repealed. Online casino games are legal only because they were folded into the 2023 fixed-odds licence.

What is Brazil’s gambling policy today?

Licensed online sports betting and online casino under federal oversight by the SPA within the Ministry of Finance, state-run lotteries, and continued prohibition of land-based casinos, bingo halls and jogo do bicho.

Why do politicians oppose casino expansion?

A mix of religious and social opposition, concerns about household debt and problem gambling, and the absence of a broad voter constituency defending casino products, unlike football sponsorship on the sports betting side.

Could online casino be banned in Brazil?

It would take new legislation, not a regulatory decision, and it would push players back to unlicensed offshore sites. Tighter advertising, payment and limit rules are the far more likely outcome.

Gambling carries a built-in house edge and produces losses over time for players as a group. Anyone who gambles should use deposit and loss limits, treat stakes as entertainment spending, and seek support if play stops feeling optional.