ABLE forum challenges Brazil betting ban and calls for evidence-led rules

The Brazilian Association for Economic Freedom (ABLE) held its first Betting Brasil Studies Observatory on 26 October at the FGV-EAESP business school in São Paulo, bringing together lawyers, executives and researchers to discuss the economic model of betting, consumer protection and the effects of Provisional Measure 1.394/2026, which banned betting in the country. The event was supported institutionally by Gamewiz Brasil and aimed to bring academia, government, civil society and industry together around evidence-based regulation. Across four panels, participants argued that measures taken on moral indignation, without data and without enforcement, tend to fail, and that the most vulnerable bettor pays the cost.

The first panel featured Luciano Timm, ABLE president, founding partner of CMT Advogados and a university professor, and Bruno Palumbo, country manager of Gamewiz Brasil, an operator that held SPA/MF authorisation for six brands until the measure was issued. Timm said prohibiting without effective enforcement is ineffective, citing the jogo do bicho, a criminal offence since 1941 that is still available on street corners, and comparing betting with tobacco, which coexists with smuggled Paraguayan cigarettes, and with electronic cigarettes, which are banned but widely consumed outside Anvisa control. Palumbo said the betting operating model is sustainable even with a combined tax burden that consumes about 40% of revenue, and that the operation depends on compliance able to identify signs of compulsive disorder and the use of platforms for money laundering. According to the executive, prohibition pushes bettors into the illegal market, where anyone can bet any amount for as long as they want without triggering any alert, while the regulated market has filters and blocks aimed at the most vulnerable.

Timm said there is no concrete evidence for the interruption and called the idea that money bet leaves the economy a fallacy, saying the value returns to society through taxes, jobs and contracts with suppliers and advertising. He rejected the thesis that betting is responsible for retail performance, attributing it to competition with Chinese platforms, and questioned the constitutionality of the revenue waiver imposed by the measure. According to him, the sector has already collected more than R$10bn in taxes and the government has not indicated a source to replace that revenue. He also criticised state intervention in citizens' freedom to choose their leisure.

In the second panel, Diógenes Carvalho, director of marketing compliance and consumer relations at Gamewiz Brasil and a university professor, and Cristiano Coelho, a behavioural analyst and university professor, discussed behavioural economics and the concept of moral disgust. Diógenes said moral disgust is the reaction to what offends personal values, and that betting was framed to provoke indignation, associated with suicides, debt, family destruction and addiction; he cited Instituto Democracia em Xeque data indicating about 2.5 million publications on the topic generated approximately 40 million interactions. He said moral indignation cannot guide regulation of the sector. Coelho noted that emotion, not reason, drives most decisions, subject to biases, heuristics and limits of self-control. Diógenes added that knowing the consumer is a condition for regulating well, since not every game is pathological and not every compulsion is illness. Coelho said risks should be observed and monitored as early as possible to prevent a person reaching the maximum risk level, ludopathy, citing self-report and time spent playing as tools.

The third panel examined the concrete effects of Provisional Measure 1.394/2026 with Pietro Cardia Lorenzoni, founding partner of Cardia and a university professor, and Jacqueline Salmen Raffoul, a partner in CMT Advogados' economic regulation area and a doctor of law. Jacqueline said the measure was issued without a case study and without a regulatory impact assessment, citing sponsorship contracts with football clubs, many turned into SAFs because of large debts, which now need to find other sponsors to honour commitments already made. Pietro proposed reading the betting market through two lenses: responsible gambling, which assigns companies the task of structuring internal controls, and public health, which assumes those mechanisms failed and that gambling must be limited more strictly. On the sector's future after the elections, both pointed to uncertainty. Jacqueline said a possible development is a ban on advertising, and that she believes the sector returns in March, when the measure expires; Pietro shared that assessment.

Pietro said minister Luiz Fux tends towards inertia in deciding the request for a precautionary measure in ADI 8.027/DF, and that because of the sector's negative image Congress has no interest in amending the measure, with the joint committee that should analyse it not even installed, reducing the chances of a legislative route. In the judiciary, the federal regional courts indicated that competence lies with the Supreme Court, an understanding endorsed by the TCU. Pietro's assessment was that the measure's objectives were not achieved, because Brazilians did not stop betting and the state stopped collecting. Jacqueline added that abrupt interruptions affect the whole sector, widen legal uncertainty and harm Brazil's image.

The closing session was given by Lilian Carvalho, a marketing professor at FGV-EAESP, who presented a literature review on the relationship between advertising and ludopathy. The 22 studies reviewed show that advertising changes bettor behaviour, potentially increasing betting frequency and spending and stimulating unplanned bets, but the effect depends on the vulnerability of those exposed and is concentrated among people with compulsive behaviour or gambling disorder; only 2% of the sample reported recurring negative influence from advertising and 12% reported occasional influence. Lilian said the government's self-exclusion platform helped bettors' self-control by restricting advertising to the most vulnerable public, and argued for discussion of the responsibility of technology companies such as Meta and Google in carrying ads on social networks. According to the global meta-analysis she cited, the prevalence of problem gambling among adults is estimated at 1.29%, compared with 67.5% for nicotine and 22.7% for alcohol, sectors that were never banned.

Lilian said over-indebtedness does not support the prohibition, noting that the average Brazilian spends about R$100 on betting, an amount she said is incapable of indebting someone even on a minimum wage, while in France the average reaches €3,600. She presented the empirical research Betting on Knowledge: Framing Sports Gambling as a Legitimate Behavior, which identified a moral boundary between bettors, between those who bet on sports and those who play at the casino, and found that negative perception comes mainly from complaints about service, withdrawals and apps. The term tigrinho does not appear among the most searched; those who want to bet look for aposta real. The interviews indicated that the bettor seeks the sensation the bet provides, whatever the modality, and she said there is no difference between the bet bettor and the Mega-Sena bettor.

Throughout the Observatory, panellists argued for balancing consumer protection, freedom of choice and regulatory security, with regulation based on evidence rather than commotion. Diógenes Carvalho said initiatives that bring academia, regulators and industry together are fundamental to qualifying the public debate.