Lula’s ban on fixed-odds betting triggers 428 illegal sites in Brazil in three days

Brazil’s new ban on fixed-odds betting and online casinos has already done the one thing regulators hate most: it pushed activity into the grey market, fast. According to Bet Legal, 428 new illegal betting sites appeared in just three days after Medida Provisória nº 1.394/2026 was announced.

1. The measure, signed by President Lula, is the first concrete effect of the prohibition of fixed-odds bets and online casinos in Brazil. The timing matters: the MP was issued nine days before the first round of the election, with no transition period and no impact study, according to the newspapers cited in the original reporting.
2. Brazilian media that had spent years criticizing betting companies ended up attacking the government instead. Folha de S.Paulo, O Globo, Estadão, Valor Econômico, and CNN Brasil all pointed to the same issue: the government regulated the market and then failed to staff the enforcement side of it.
3. Folha’s editorial called the ban part of a sequence of “electoral moves” that together approach R$ 200 billion. It also said: “Instead of governing the country, Lula is governed by the election.”
4. There is a direct fiscal problem here, and it is not subtle. The 2027 budget bill sent to Congress less than a month ago includes R$ 5,3 billion in revenue from a sector that now stops existing in its current form. O Globo said the campaign-ending measures — the betting ban, a Bolsa Família adjustment, and Desenrola 3.0 — may require an adjustment of up to R$ 42,3 billion in the next administration’s accounts.
5. The sector’s own numbers make the gap larger. Brazil’s Federal Revenue Service recorded R$ 9,9 billion collected from the sector between January and August 2026, a real increase of 69% versus the same period in 2025, according to CNN Brasil. Official Treasury data obtained by BNLData via a freedom of information request show gross gaming revenue (GGR) of R$ 36,9 billion in 2025 and R$ 20,07 billion in just the first half of 2026.

For high-risk operators and PSPs, the key detail is not the politics; it is the enforcement capacity. Estadão reported that Brazil has only four civil servants assigned to supervise thousands of sites. That is the kind of ratio that does not “manage” a market — it hands volume to the illegal side.