Flávio Bolsonaro uses online betting to attack Lula and court female voters in Brazil’s first-round campaign

Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) has turned online betting into a campaign weapon against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), linking the growth of the sector to household financial pain. The move is aimed at trimming his rejection among women, which his team sees as a key obstacle in the final stretch of the first round.

1. According to Metrópoles, Flávio’s allies believe betting losses hit women especially hard when they squeeze the family budget. That is why the senator’s camp is using the issue to win over female voters who are uneasy about the financial damage tied to online gambling.
2. On Wednesday, September 23, Flávio called Lula “pai do tigrinho” during a live stream. He said he would eliminate virtual casinos if elected, including games such as “tigrinho,” while leaving sports betting in place because, in his words, it offers “some form of control.”
3. “Lula brought two evils to Brazil that are his children: one is Lulinha; the other is tigrinho. It is tigrinho that is ruining people’s lives and leaving everyone in debt,” the senator said. The line is doing two jobs at once: blaming Lula for the sector’s expansion and turning betting losses into a household issue rather than a niche regulatory debate.
4. The offensive lands just as the federal government is discussing a provisional measure to restrict online gambling. Lula is still weighing the scope of the proposal; one option would include sports betting, while another would focus restrictions on virtual casinos and other games. Allies of the president say the announcement could come close to the October 4 vote.
5. Flávio has also argued that the growth of betting reflects the PT government’s handling of the sector and has accused it of weak enforcement. But the timeline is less tidy than the campaign slogan: fixed-odds betting was legalized in 2018 under Michel Temer (MDB), with operating rules left for later, and in 2023 Lula signed the law that regulated and taxed online betting and included virtual casinos among the permitted formats, with oversight assigned to the Ministry of Finance.

For PSPs and acquirers, the useful bit is not the campaign theatre itself but the direction of travel: Brazil’s betting rules are still being contested at the edges, and sports betting may end up treated differently from virtual casinos. That is the kind of split that matters when a market moves from “regulated” to “restricted” faster than the licenses were underwritten.