Brazil’s finance minister says no decision has been made on betting restrictions, but quotes the wrong revenue figure

Brazil’s Finance Minister Dario Durigan said on Thursday, 17, that the government has not made any decision on a ban or tougher restrictions on bets in the country. The interesting part for operators and PSPs is not the policy language itself, but the metric confusion: he cited R$ 62 billion as money leaving households for betting, while the official figures point to a very different picture.

1. Durigan said the government remains focused on “the cost of living” and on preserving Brazilian families’ income. He linked the betting debate to the same policy logic used to contain fuel-price increases, saying the administration is still working to reduce the impact on household budgets.
2. His quote was: “So there is no decision made yet, when there is a decision made we will announce it, but what I am saying is that we remain very concerned about the cost of living and about preserving the income of Brazilian families.” He added that “while we still see R$ 62 billion leaving families for bets, people are not comfortable.”
3. The R$ 62 billion figure does not match the sector’s GGR (Gross Gaming Revenue) — the amount that actually remains with betting operators after prizes are paid out, and the base used to calculate statutory allocations. It looks closer to a mix of deposits and turnover, which are much larger figures and not comparable to net gaming revenue.
4. According to balances released by the Secretariat of Prizes and Bets of the Ministry of Finance (SPA/MF) in January 2026, and data obtained by BNLData via LAI (Lei de Acesso à Informação), Brazil’s betting sector posted GGR of R$ 36.9 billion in 2025, from R$ 220.6 billion in deposits. Of that amount, R$ 183.7 billion returned to bettors as prizes and withdrawable bonuses.
5. For the first half of 2026, SPA/MF reported GGR of R$ 20.07 billion, up 15.3% versus the same period in 2025. In those six months, total turnover reached R$ 410.85 billion, of which R$ 377.86 billion was paid back to bettors in prizes, implying an RTP (return to player) of 92.2%.

On the official numbers, the sector’s GGR does not come close to R$ 62 billion in any available reporting period: not for full-year 2025, and not for the first half of 2026. For PSPs and acquiring teams, that matters because public debate around “money leaving families” often collapses very different metrics into one bucket — and once that happens, tax, licensing and restriction talk tends to follow the wrong number.