Brazil’s new Chamber is split on gambling, with 277 deputies lacking any recorded vote on the issue

Brazil’s next Chamber of Deputies will take office in February 2027 without a clear majority on gambling legalization. For operators, PSPs, and acquiring teams, the useful number is not the headline vote split so much as the fact that 277 of the 513 elected deputies have no recorded vote on either the gambling framework or the fixed-odds betting bill.

1. BNLData reviewed the 513 elected deputies against two key votes: PL 442/91, the gambling framework that would legalize casinos, bingo, and jogo do bicho, and PL 3.626/23, the fixed-odds betting and online gaming bill that became Law 14.790/2023.
2. On PL 442/91 in February 2022, only 157 of the current 513 elected deputies had a recorded vote. Of those, 87 voted in favor and 70 voted against. The bill passed then by 246 votes to 202 and is now in the Senate plenary as PL 2.234/22. If senators change the text, it goes back to the Chamber, where this new composition will decide it.
3. The voting record is not neatly ideological. Among the 67 elected deputies who voted on both matters, 16 switched positions. Eleven supported gambling legalization in 2022 but rejected betting regulation in 2023, including Altineu Côrtes (PL-RJ), Soraya Santos (PL-RJ), Magda Mofatto (PL-GO), Rosana Valle (PL-SP), and Alceu Moreira (MDB-RS). Five went the other way, including Aguinaldo Ribeiro (PP-PB), Gutemberg Reis (MDB-RJ), and Célio Studart (PSD-CE).
4. For the betting bill vote on 21 December 2023, the text passed 292 to 114. BNLData has identified votes for 146 elected deputies so far: 87 in favor and 59 against. The nominal count is still incomplete for PT, União, Republicanos, PSDB, PSOL, PV, Rede, and Solidariedade. That matters because the 2023 vote was about regulating and taxing the sector under a Lula government proposal, not about the same legal question as the gambling framework.
5. The two largest blocs carry much of the resistance. On gambling legalization, 18 of the 19 PT deputies who voted in 2022 were against. In PL, the split was 19 against and 16 in favor, reflecting the party’s evangelical wing. The strongest support came from PP (13 to 2), MDB (9 to 3), and PCdoB (5 to 1). The two rapporteurs remain in the Chamber: Felipe Carreras (PSB-PE) for PL 442/91 and Adolfo Viana (PSDB-BA) for the betting bill.

The number that should matter to high-risk operators is 277: that is 54% of the Chamber, and none of those deputies have a recorded vote on either file. In other words, the next round on gambling in Brazil will be decided less by yesterday’s roll calls than by a large bloc with no public voting history on the sector.