Sidônio says he was right on betting ban, but Lula thanked others for the turnaround

A day after the runoff victory, Brazil’s communications minister tried to claim authorship of the push to ban online betting. But in Lula’s victory speech, the credit went elsewhere — and not a single word went to the bets fight, which is awkward if you were hoping for a clean internal victory lap.

1. In an interview with CNN Brasil on Monday (26), Sidônio Palmeira, minister of the Secretariat of Social Communication (Secom), said he did not face pressure during the campaign and defended the ban on online bets after Lula’s second-round win. When asked whether he was the one who suggested the president end the bets, he did not dodge: “They said I suggested to the president to ban the bets. And I was right.”
2. Sidônio also said the betting debate did not create pressure for him and blamed the rumor on the press. But when he explained what drove the victory, he tied the result to the 5x2 scale, zero-fare public transport, and financing for MEIs (individual microentrepreneurs). The betting ban — the measure he says he is proud of — was not on his own list of reasons for the win.
3. Lula’s victory speech was even more explicit about who he thanked. He credited vice president Geraldo Alckmin (PSB), federal deputy André Janones (Rede-MG), senator Camilo Santana (PT-CE), and re-elected governor of Piauí Rafael Fonteles (PT) as key parts of the second-round campaign. Janones was called a “general,” while Fonteles was described as a “commander,” in reference to the phone he gave Lula so he could speak directly to voters.
4. According to the full speech published by Poder360, there was no mention of the bets or of Sidônio. Instead, Lula said the election taught him many lessons and promised that digital communication would have a much bigger role in the government, with him speaking directly to the public without intermediaries. For the person in charge of government communications, that lands less like praise and more like a performance review.
5. The article also says the turnaround did not come from the strategy built before the first round, but from the reorganization after it. That was when PT leaders pointed to Sidônio as the main reason for Lula’s first-round loss. The same reporting said the betting ban was at the center of an internal dispute: Sidônio backed a total end to online betting, while PT president Edinho Silva preferred a gradual solution through Congress. The party even considered replacing Raul Rabelo, Sidônio’s right-hand man, with João Santana.

For high-risk operators, the useful part is not the political theatre but the policy signal: Brazil’s online betting debate is being handled as a communications and coalition issue as much as a regulatory one. When the governing camp is split between a hard ban and a gradual Congressional path, PSPs and merchants get a clear reminder that market access can turn on internal politics before any formal rule is published.