Datafolha: 81% of Brazilians do not bet and do not live with bettors, yet 78% support a ban on bets

A Datafolha survey published by Folha de S.Paulo on Thursday (1º) puts a neat-sounding 78% behind the ban on bets and online casinos under Provisional Measure No. 1.394/2026. But the institute’s own numbers show that most of that support comes from people who do not use the product and are not exposed to it at home, which matters if you are trying to read public pressure on regulated gambling and the black market.

1. According to Datafolha, 81% of respondents said they neither bet nor had anyone in the household who bet before the ban. Only 9% said they were bettors themselves, and another 9% said only a family member bet. In other words, at least 59 percentage points of the 78% in favor of the ban come from homes with no contact with betting at all.
2. The same survey found that 18% oppose the ban, twice the 9% who identified as bettors. That suggests resistance to the measure extends beyond people who actually place bets and includes Brazilians who do not play but still reject a ban on a regulated activity. Folha did not publish the cross-tab between support for the MP and betting behavior, so the exact size of that group is not available.
3. One line in the coverage says the data point to a “scenario of growth” in bettors, comparing the current 18% with 7% in July. The comparison does not hold up: in July, Datafolha measured who bet; now it combined people who bet with those who had a bettor in the household. Using the matching metric, the figure moved from 7% to 9%, which is within the survey’s two-point margin of error.
4. There is also a relevant detail for risk teams: in July, 6% of Brazilians who considered themselves indebted said they were betting, below the 7% recorded for the total population. The later reports still mention studies linking betting platforms to higher indebtedness, but the institute’s own data in this case does not confirm that claim.
5. The Bolsa Família number is the one that points most clearly to the illegal market. Datafolha found that 31% of beneficiaries said they bet or had someone in the household who bet, compared with 14% among non-beneficiaries. The key point for PSPs and acquirers is the one the original coverage hints at: regulated sites were blocking beneficiaries, so this kind of participation is more consistent with offshore or informal channels than with the licensed market.

The practical takeaway for high-risk payments is simple: headline support for a ban is not the same thing as informed support from actual users. And when a survey shows activity among a group that regulated operators were blocking, that is a signal to look at the illegal flow, not just the policy debate.