Lula’s attack on Globo points to the wider cost of Brazil’s betting ban

When Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said Globo was angry because he “ended the bets,” he was putting a political spin on a regulatory move that hits far beyond Grupo Globo. The same measure that shut down online betting also cut off sponsorships, media revenue, and regulated-market protection for a much wider set of operators and partners.

1. Speaking at a campaign event in Ipatinga (MG) on Friday (16), Lula attacked Globo after Flávio Bolsonaro had lunch with the group’s management on the day of the candidate’s questioning. He said one reason for the broadcaster’s alleged displeasure was the MP that banned online betting: “I ended the bets and it had the bet.”
2. The point that matters for payments and gambling infrastructure is that Grupo Globo is not just commenting from the sidelines. It 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 since February 2025.
3. But the damage was never limited to Globo. Band and SBT also have partnerships with betting operators, and their affiliates and repeaters across the country lost sponsorships and advertising revenue. For the distribution side, that means a direct hit to commercial inventory tied to gambling brands.
4. Football clubs also lost their main sponsors, and the Flamengo-Fluminense protest at Fla-Flu showed that fans and executives did not accept the measure quietly. On the operator side, the shock also affected thousands of direct employees and service providers in the chain, while millions of recreational bettors were pushed away from the regulated market and toward illegal sites.
5. The thing is, none of this was a surprise. The sector, the clubs, and specialist media had warned about the economic and political cost before the MP was issued. By turning the loss of a business into suspicion against a broadcaster, Lula effectively acknowledged the scale of the disruption he chose to use as a campaign banner.