IBJR Pushes Back on ABRAS, Says Brazil’s Betting Ban Is Not What Drove Grocery Sales Higher

The Instituto Brasileiro de Jogo Responsável (IBJR) says the data cited by the Brazilian Supermarkets Association (ABRAS) do not prove that restricting sports betting caused higher food purchases in October. For PSPs and payment teams watching Brazil, the useful part is not the retail headline — it is how easily transaction volume, consumer spending, and regulated gaming revenue get mixed together in public debate.

1. In a statement on Thursday (29/10), IBJR argued that establishing a causal link between the betting restriction and grocery spending would require separating out other variables such as income, employment, prices, and household resources in Brazil. In other words: if you want to blame one policy, you need to strip out the usual suspects first.
2. The association’s own weekly monitoring with NIQ, according to IBJR, points the other way. ABRAS showed nominal food retail sales rising 7.9% in the week of 14 to 20 September, when the ban was not yet in force, and 7.4% between 5 and 11 October, compared with the same weeks in 2025.
3. IBJR also pointed to ABRAS’s earlier August analysis, which attributed higher consumption to three other factors: improved employment, higher income, and lower food prices. ABRAS said real household consumption was up 2.71% year to date, and IBJR’s point is that these drivers predate the betting restriction and cannot just be folded into the effect of the measure.
4. The organization rejected the idea that a drop in PIX transfers proves money moved from betting into supermarkets. The raw number of transfers does not show how much households stopped betting, where the money on gaming platforms went, or what share of wagering continued on illegal sites.
5. IBJR also challenged two figures that have circulated in the public debate: R$ 143 billion allegedly taken from commerce by betting and R$ 62.5 billion taken from household income. The group said the regulated betting market generated about R$ 37 billion in GGR (gross gaming revenue, calculated as total wagered minus prizes paid) in 2025, while Brazilian household consumption totaled about R$ 8.1 trillion, according to IBGE. On that basis, GGR accounted for about 0.46% of total consumption.

The other problem, from a payments and risk perspective, is methodological. IBJR says the R$ 62.5 billion estimate is built from PIX transfers without distinguishing licensed operators from illegal platforms, while the R$ 143 billion figure is presented as a sales projection without a clear technical basis. That is the sort of number that can travel far in a policy argument and tell you very little about actual money flows.