Without betting-tax revenue, Brazil will adjust the 2027 budget

Brazil’s federal government says it will have to rework the 2027 budget after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s decision to end online betting this year cuts into the forecast for so-called “sin tax” revenue. For PSPs and operators, the key point is simple: when a regulated betting stream disappears, the fiscal assumptions built around it have to be rewritten.

1. Finance Minister Dario Durigan told journalists on Thursday (5) that the government will need to “accommodate” the revenue hit in the 2027 budget proposal, which still has to be voted on by the legislature. He said the adjustment should not create difficulties for revenues.
2. From January 2025 through September this year, Brazil collected R$ 15.3 billion from taxing the “bets,” according to Receita Federal. That revenue is now being removed from the budget base after the online betting ban was introduced by provisional measure.
3. Durigan also argued that the money “does not disappear” but gets redirected into other economic activity, which in turn lifts collections from other federal taxes. His example was retail and wholesale activity, which he said is already seeing higher volumes.
4. The provisional measure that banned the bets was issued on 25 September and must be voted on and approved by the National Congress within 120 days, meaning by 5 March next year, or it loses validity. If that happens, betting would become legal again in Brazil in March 2027, under a newly elected National Congress.

For the high-risk payments crowd, Brazil is doing what governments always do after a revenue shock: moving the number somewhere else on the spreadsheet. The useful signal is not the politics, but the fact that betting tax assumptions can vanish fast and force a budget reset within the same fiscal cycle.