Brazil’s Lula criticizes online betting at the UN and signals tighter rules, including a possible online casino ban

Online betting made it into President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, in New York. For PSPs and operators with exposure to Brazil, the important part is not the rhetoric — it is the direction of travel: the government says a provisional measure will be sent to Congress by the end of this week to tighten the rules.

1. Speaking about the sector, Lula said betting companies “turn vice into profit” and said he would “not tolerate this business model.” He linked online betting to addiction and, in Poder360’s summary of the speech, the issue was described as “addiction caused by online betting (bets).”
2. The announcement came before the government presents a provisional measure that is meant to harden regulation of online betting in Brazil. According to the information given in the speech, the proposal will be sent to Congress by the end of this week.
3. One of the measures being considered is a ban on online casinos, which the text refers to as the “tigrinho” game. That is the clearest direct signal in the source for operators and payment providers: the government is not just talking about more controls, but about potentially removing an entire sub-segment.
4. Lula placed betting in a broader regulatory frame, alongside artificial intelligence, big tech, and the maintenance of Pix as public infrastructure. He said the lack of regulation is a “historical omission” and called the current tech race “unregulated neoliberalism.”
5. The betting remarks landed in a campaign-season context. The first round of Brazil’s election is scheduled for 4 October, and the speech also covered other policies backed by the government. For high-risk PSPs, that combination matters because regulatory moves around betting are being tied to a broader political agenda, not treated as a standalone licensing tweak.