Five measures that work better than an outright betting ban

Brazil’s government has signaled its intention to ban fixed-odds betting, and now the issue moves to Congress, which has 120 days to review the provisional measure. For operators, PSPs, and payment partners, the real question is not whether the market gets tighter — it is whether lawmakers choose a blunt prohibition or targeted rules that keep players inside the regulated channel.

1. Congress has four choices on the provisional measure: approve it in full, reject it in full, let it lapse, or amend it within the scope of the original topic. The authors argue that the last option is where serious alternatives to a total ban should be debated.
2. The core argument against prohibition is simple: banning the activity tends to push demand into the illegal market. Without the channeling effect and player protection that a regulated market provides, regular bettors migrate to unlicensed operators and are left fully exposed.
3. The article also flags the economic damage of a rushed ban: thousands of jobs lost, investments that will not happen, and losses not only for operators but for the whole supply chain. For foreign investors, the signal is even worse because it creates legal uncertainty.
4. The first alternative the authors propose is public education. They say neither the government nor the sector has done enough to explain what a regulated market is, why legalization and regulation matter, and how players can tell legal sites from illegal ones.
5. The practical tools already mentioned in Brazil include self-exclusion registries, the .bet.br domain, and biometric tools that block minors from access. The point is not abstract consumer protection; it is whether players know these tools exist at all. Without that knowledge, the population becomes more vulnerable to demagoguery around ludopatia (gambling addiction).

For high-risk payment businesses, this is the part that matters: regulated markets only work when players can actually find them, recognize them, and trust the controls attached to them. If lawmakers skip that step and go straight to prohibition, they do not remove demand — they simply move it somewhere payments, compliance, and consumer protection are much harder to control.