- The order being drafted in Brasília bans online casino games only, and sports wagering keeps its licenses.
- Gambling taxes and license fees brought the treasury almost 10 billion reais, about $1.95 billion, in 2025.
- Flamengo, Palmeiras, Corinthians and other Série A soccer clubs signed a manifesto defending a betting market worth an estimated $188 million a year to clubs.
- Once signed, the order applies immediately, and Congress then has 120 days to make it law or let it die.
The order could take effect the moment Lula signs it, testing a licensed betting market that isn’t yet two years old.
BRASÍLIA, Brazil – Online casino games face a nationwide ban under an order the government is finishing this week, and licensed sports betting would be spared. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva returns from New York this week to settle the text.
Casino Games Targeted, Sports Bets Spared
Online casino operations are the target, Reuters reported Sept. 17, and the order leaves sports bets alone, along with the shirt deals clubs have already signed. The country has 188 licensed operators, and industry groups told Reuters that casino play makes up about three-quarters of what they earn. The games in line for a ban include the slot-style title known as “Tigrinho,” Brasil de Fato reported.
Lula said in remarks Reuters carried Sept. 17 that his “personal position is to end betting,” after three meetings inside the government and a meeting with civil-society groups.
Sports wagering keeps its legal status in the draft, though the text tightens the advertising rules operators live under, Brasil de Fato reported, citing government sources.
The Football Money At Stake
Ten Série A clubs, among them Flamengo, Palmeiras, Corinthians, São Paulo, Vasco da Gama, Fluminense and Botafogo, joined the São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro state football federations in a manifesto published Sept. 17 under the title “The End of Brazilian Football,” CNN Brasil reported. “If the regulated market ends, betting doesn’t end. Football does,” the manifesto said in its closing line.
A betting company sits on the front of the shirt at 13 of the league’s 20 clubs, and Inside World Football put the sponsorship money in play at roughly 1 billion reais, about $188 million, a year.
A Measure That Can Expire Before Congress Votes
Under Brazil’s system, a medida provisória is law from the day it is published, ahead of any vote in Congress. Lawmakers then have 60 days to convert it into law, a window that can be extended once for another 60 days. If the 120-day clock runs out without a vote, the measure loses effect retroactively to the day it was issued under Article 62 of Brazil’s constitution, and Congress is left to settle by decree whatever happened while it was in force.
The government had set neither a final text nor a publication date as of Sept. 21, and one faction wanted to wait until after the election to take up a change this size while another pushed for immediate action, CNN Brasil reported. Officials from the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Entrepreneurship, along with the federal tax authority, are working on the text.
Bernardo Cavalcanti Freire, legal adviser to the operators’ trade group ANJL, the National Association of Gaming and Lotteries, told Reuters that on a preliminary estimate “compensation liabilities could reach 120 billion reais,” about $23.35 billion, from operators that paid for their five-year licenses.
Why U.S. Regulators Are Watching
Brazil’s licensing law has been in force since Jan. 1, 2025, and it admitted sports betting and online casino games together under one framework. Less than two years later, the government is trying to pull them apart.
For USA gambling sites and the state regulators who license them, that reversal is a live test of whether sports betting and online casino games can be separated once both are already generating revenue under one law. Most states that have legalized sports betting have never followed it with legal online casino games, and the fights over the ones considering it are tracked on the online casino bill tracker.
What Happens Next
The text was expected to be settled once Lula got back from the United Nations General Assembly in New York, and the government’s plan was to put it before Congress the week after, CNN Brasil reported. Lula told a campaign event in Guarulhos on Sept. 18 that the government “is going to end the bets,” SBT News reported. Brazilians vote in the first round of the presidential election Oct. 4.