From Lula’s Bingo Crackdown to the Bets MP: 22 Years of Selective Moralism Around Gambling in Brazil

Brazil’s government has again reached for a prohibitionist tool on gambling, this time with MP 1.394 banning fixed-odds betting nine days before the first round of elections. For PSPs, acquirers, and operators, the point is not the rhetoric; it is the mechanism: sudden political pressure can still rewrite the rules for an entire payment flow overnight.

1. On 25 September, the Palácio do Planalto published Medida Provisória 1.394, which bans bets in Brazil. The measure prohibits the exploitation, offering, intermediation, and advertising of fixed-odds betting across the country, in both physical and virtual channels. The ban covers sports betting and online games.
2. This is not Lula’s first swing at gambling. On 20 February 2004, he signed MP 168 in the arrival hall of Brasília Air Base, shutting down nearly 1,100 bingo halls in one move. That measure also banned all bingo formats and electronic slot machines known as “caça-níqueis.”
3. The 2004 crackdown came after the Waldomiro Diniz scandal, revealed on 13 February that year. Diniz, then an adviser in the Civil House, was accused of extorting gaming businesses to raise funds for the PT. Lula described the decree as “the beginning of a process of moralization of our country.”
4. The 2004 MP did not survive the Senate: it was rejected by 32 votes to 31, with three abstentions, and archived. That vote allowed bingo halls to reopen. The current MP 1.394 is arriving under a very different political clock, but with the same Brazilian habit of using emergency instruments for gambling policy.
5. The new measure goes further than the government initially considered. According to reporting cited by Estadão, Lula was first advised to ban only online casinos, including the so-called “Tigrinho” game, while keeping sports betting with advertising restrictions. The stricter option, backed by Secom minister Sidônio Palmeira, won out.

The stated justification is public health. Lula has called bets “a disease, not a game,” and at the UN General Assembly on 22 September he said the bets industry turns addiction into profit. Politically, though, the timing is hard to miss: an Atlas/Bloomberg survey released on 23 September showed 75% support for a ban, and internal PT polling reportedly found the move plays well with evangelical voters. For payment companies, the lesson is simple: in Brazil, gambling regulation can still move as fast as the campaign calendar.