Brazil’s betting sector pushes back on Lula da Silva’s plan to ban fixed-odds sports betting

The National Association of Games and Lotteries (ANJL) has rejected President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s statements in favor of banning or restricting fixed-odds sports betting in Brazil. For PSPs, acquirers, and banks working with high-risk merchants, the point is simple: if the legal market gets squeezed, demand does not disappear — it moves.

1. ANJL said the incidents cited to support Lula’s position came from events before the sector was regulated, without specifying whether they involved licensed operators or clandestine platforms. In the association’s view, using those cases to justify new restrictions does not give an accurate picture of how the current regulated market works.
2. The industry’s argument is the usual one, but not without teeth: people who want to bet do not stop just because the state closes the legal market. ANJL says a ban in Brazil would push bettors, especially more vulnerable ones, toward illegal sites with no user identification, no betting limits, and no responsible-gaming tools.
3. ANJL’s preferred answer is not prohibition but tighter state supervision and more effective action against illegal platforms operating in Brazil. The association said it is willing to work with the Federal Government and the National Congress under three principles: responsibility, transparency, and consumer protection.
4. The timing matters because betting brands have become major sponsors of Brazilian football. In Serie A, 14 of the 20 clubs have betting companies as sponsors, and 13 of them place those logos in the main shirt position. Flamengo receives about USD 51,6 million a year from Betano, Palmeiras about USD 32,7 million from Sportingbet, Corinthians — Lula’s own club — about USD 28,8 million from Esportes da Sorte, São Paulo about USD 21,7 million from Superbet, and Fluminense about USD 16,5 million, also from Superbet.
5. Those sponsorship fees are not cosmetic. The source says they help fund wages and youth academies at clubs that have long been in debt; a sudden ban would push them back toward expensive borrowing. That is the sort of second-order effect regulators and payment providers tend to discover only after the headlines are over.

The political backdrop is the 2026 presidential race. Quaest and Datafolha polls show Lula essentially tied with, or only slightly ahead of, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, within the margin of error, in a contest tighter than 2022. Brazil’s official betting system recorded more than 30,8 million tax identification numbers with active bets in the first half of 2026, a potential voter base larger than the margin that decided the last presidential election.