Lula’s letter to evangelical families backs a betting crackdown, but MP 1.394/2026 removed the safeguards Brazil had just built

The thing is: Brazil’s regulated online betting framework was supposed to protect players from the usual high-risk mess — minors, credit-funded wagering, no self-exclusion, no local accountability. According to the source text, Medida Provisória (MP) 1.394/2026 did the opposite by eliminating the very guardrails created under Lula’s own administration.

1. President Lula opened a letter to Brazilian evangelical families with a Bible verse, in a text due to be released on Wednesday (14) by the Frente de Evangélicos pelo Estado de Direito, a movement that supports his reelection. The letter says Christians he has spoken with taught him to “follow the truth in love,” and it lists the fight against online betting among the actions that “bless” families.
2. But the source frames that claim as political language rather than policy. Instead of “combating” betting, the government banned it through MP 1.394/2026, published on 25 September, less than two weeks before the first round. The text says internal PT polling ahead of the MP showed the ban was especially well received by evangelical voters, who were mostly leaning toward the opponent.
3. The regulated market had been built under Lei nº 14.790/2023, signed by Lula in December 2023, together with rules from the Secretaria de Prêmios e Apostas (SPA/MF). According to the source, those rules took effect as the regulated market opened in January 2025 and included CPF-based identity checks and facial recognition, an effective block on under-18s, and a ban on betting with credit cards, cryptoassets, and third-party money.
4. The same framework also prohibited credit, advances, or loans for betting; required responsible-gaming tools such as deposit, loss, and time limits, pauses, and self-exclusion; blocked betting by beneficiaries of social programs such as Bolsa Família and BPC; imposed advertising rules with mandatory warnings and bans on messages aimed at children and teenagers; and required customer service, an ombuds function, and local legal responsibility for companies based in Brazil, subject to supervision and sanctions.
5. Those safeguards did not exist in the illegal market, and the source says the ban pushed players there instead. Even after 22 months of regulation, illegal operators still held more than 40% of the market. With authorized operators shut down, millions of Brazilians who keep betting are now doing so on sites with no age verification, no self-exclusion, no tax collection, and no accountability to Brazilian authorities.

For PSPs and acquirers, the practical signal is simple: when a government removes the regulated route, the volume does not disappear. It migrates to unverified sites, which is exactly where payment controls, age checks, and local enforcement stop being part of the equation.