Flávio Bolsonaro tells Globo leadership Congress already has a deal to bring back betting, with online casinos still undecided

Flávio Bolsonaro told Grupo Globo executives that Congress already has an agreement to restore online betting in Brazil, with the only open question being whether the return would also cover online casinos. For PSPs and operators, that is the useful part: it points to a possible split between sportsbook access and casino-style products, which is where much of the revenue sits.

1. According to a column by João Paulo Biage in O POVO+, the meeting took place on Friday (16), during a lunch hours before Flávio’s interview at the broadcaster. Present were Grupo Globo president João Roberto Marinho, vice president for Institutional Relations Paulo Tonet, and campaign coordinator Senator Rogério Marinho (PL-RN).
2. Biage’s report says betting was the main topic of the lunch. Flávio reportedly told the group that the only remaining issue was whether any change would include online casinos such as “jogo do tigrinho” and “aviãozinho,” which he said concentrate most of the sector’s revenue.
3. The context here is simple enough: O POVO says Globo was hit in two ways by the online betting ban introduced by a provisional measure from President Lula. First, it affected the group’s own betting operation; second, it cut advertising revenue in sports events and sports channels.
4. Grupo Globo is a partner of MGM Resorts in Boa Lion, the joint venture that operates BetMGM in Brazil under a license from the Secretariat of Prizes and Bets (SPA) since February 2025. The report says the group was unable to replace betting ad spend in the market because offers from other advertisers were much smaller.
5. On the same day, Lula attacked the broadcaster at a campaign event in Ipatinga (MG) and cited the MP as one of the reasons for the group’s dissatisfaction, saying he had ended bets and that Globo “had the bet.” Globo replied that the meeting with Flávio was institutional in nature and that the president would also have been received had he requested it.

For the market, the key signal is not the campaign theater; it is that a PL-aligned future administration is being described, in the candidate’s own words, as open to restoring sports betting while potentially keeping online casinos closed. That distinction matters because sportsbooks and casino-style games do not get treated the same way in legislation, payments policy, or merchant risk reviews.