IBJR says Brazil’s regulated betting market already has player-protection tools in place as IEPS dossier argues for prohibition

The Brazilian Institute for Responsible Gaming (IBJR) says the IEPS dossier “A saúde dos brasileiros em jogo” does not show that banning the regulated betting market would protect the public. For PSPs and operators, the point is straightforward: the only player-protection tools the market has are the ones that exist inside a legal framework.

1. According to IBJR, Brazil’s regulation brought in at the start of 2025 measures that did not exist before: CPF verification, facial recognition, a ban on bets by minors, spending limits, and centralized self-exclusion. That self-exclusion tool had been used by 1.2 million people by August 2026.
2. The institute also says more than 3 million beneficiaries of social programs were blocked from betting, more than 66,000 illegal sites were blocked, and the number of active bettors fell 7.6% even before MP 1.394/2026. In other words, the regulated market has already created enforcement mechanisms that the informal market does not have.
3. IBJR pushes back on the dossier’s headline figures. The reported 400% increase refers to work absences, which rose from 67 in 2023 to 363 in 2025, while the Ministry of Labor says there are no data to directly attribute dismissals to addiction. The 12.8 million people “at risk” come from interviews conducted in 2022 and 2023, a period the authors themselves say “does not allow measuring current prevalence.”
4. It says the R$ 30.6 billion figure is only a theoretical estimate, using costs imported from the United Kingdom, not actual spending by the Brazilian public health system, SUS. That matters because a lot of high-risk policy debate turns on whether numbers describe real budget pressure or a model built from foreign inputs.
5. The same dossier, IBJR notes, argues that betting should be treated “as is done with tobacco and alcohol.” Neither is banned in Brazil; both are sold legally, taxed, and subject to restricted rules. Most of the policy tools the dossier recommends — ad rules, a regulator with sanctioning power, and medical data sharing — depend on a formal system already operating.

IBJR says regulated betting also sent R$ 45.8 million to health in 2025, money the industry had already been pushing to increase. Under the current Provisional Measure, that transfer falls to zero, leaving treatment and anti-illicit enforcement entirely to the public budget. For operators and payment providers, the operational message is simple: prohibition does not remove betting, it removes the compliance rails around it.