70.6% of social media comments on Brazil’s proposed betting ban were negative, but the real complaint was government inconsistency

A review of more than 4,000 comments on Instagram and X found that 70.6% of the reactions to President Lula’s announcement of a provisional measure to ban online betting were against it. For high-risk payments players, the more useful signal is not “public opinion” so much as how fast a political announcement can turn into a legal-risk and sentiment problem.

1. The analysis, titled “Relatório – Termômetro Social MP da Bets” and prepared by Matheus Vidal, examined comments on 12 posts about the announcement: seven on Instagram and five on X. It classified each comment separately, and made an important distinction that often gets blurred in these debates: whether people were reacting to betting itself, or to the provisional measure (MP).
2. Among the comments that took a position on the possible MP, 70.6% were against it. But 76.8% of the comments classified as being about the MP did not express any view on betting at all. In other words, the backlash was mostly political — criticism of incoherence, opportunism, and distrust in the government — rather than a direct defense of online betting operators.
3. The most-liked negative comments followed the same pattern. The top ones asked, “Perai não foi ele mesmo que regularizou as bets?” with 1,677 likes, and “Ele mesmo liberou… E agora que fazer gracinha eleitoreira” with 1,474 likes. Neither comment argued for betting companies; both attacked the government’s consistency.
4. The most-liked supportive comments celebrated the end of betting and tied the measure to politics, including “Fora bets 🙌 Bora Lula.” One commenter said their father is addicted and that the measure would at least make access harder. The text adds a practical note: a problem gambler may not know about the self-exclusion platform run by the Secretariat of Prizes and Betting of Brazil’s Ministry of Finance.
5. The methodological warning matters here. Support for the MP ranged from 64.7% on one Instagram post to 12.4% on another post on the same platform. On X, support ranged from 14.3% to 25%. Two Instagram posts accounted for about 58% of the classified comments. The sample is self-selected, users can comment multiple times, and industry-linked accounts may have mobilized — so the confidence intervals give a false sense of precision if you treat this as a public-opinion poll.

For operators, PSPs, and acquirers, the point is simple: on paper this looks like a gambling-policy story, but in practice it is also a political-risk story. A betting rule can trigger backlash even when the loudest critics are not actually defending the betting market.