ANJL-commissioned Nexus poll finds bets ban will not sway 77% of voters

A poll by Nexus, commissioned by the Associação Nacional de Jogos e Loterias (ANJL), found that 77% of Brazilian voters said the ban on legalised betting would not influence their vote in the presidential run-off, scheduled for Sunday 25 October. The survey also found that 9% of respondents named betting as the most important issue when deciding their vote for president.

Nexus interviewed 2,000 people aged over 16 across the North, Centre-West, Northeast, Southeast and South regions between 18 and 21 October. The margin of error is two percentage points. ANJL said the methodology was the same as that used in electoral polls.

On the first round, among respondents who voted and said they were aware of the ban on the companies, 82% said it had no influence on their choice for the presidency. A further 10% said the provisional measure issued by the federal government influenced them a lot, and 8% said it influenced them a little.

The poll asked the 22% who said they had been influenced by the ban how it affected them. Of these, 80% said it made them more certain of the vote they already had, 7% said it would help them decide because they had no candidate yet, 7% said it left them in doubt, 4% did not know or did not answer, and 2% said it would make them change candidate.

Betting and online games ranked 13th among the issues cited as most important for the presidential vote, named by 9% of respondents. Health and care in the SUS was cited by 43%, public security and combating organised crime by 38%, the end of the 6×1 shift and reduced working hours by 27%, corruption by 25%, education by 25%, cost of living and food prices by 24%, Bolsa Família and social programmes by 17%, taxes and income tax exemption by 14%, employment and wages by 14%, household debt by 13%, relations with the United States and tariffs on Brazilian products by 12%, and the STF, amnesty and the 8 January trials by 12%. The percentages refer to all voters who cited a topic as their first, second or third choice. A further 6% named the environment and climate change, 2% said none of the listed topics was important, and 3% did not know or did not answer.

The survey also asked about financial health. Purchasing power was rated excellent or good by 39%, regular by 31%, and bad or very bad by 29%. On family indebtedness, 40% said the situation was excellent or good, 34% regular, 10% bad and 13% very bad. On access to credit, 44% said the situation was excellent or good, 25% regular, 11% bad and 17% very bad.

Plínio Lemos Jorge, president of ANJL, said the results allowed multiple readings but none led to the conclusion that Provisional Measure 1.394 was decisive for voters. He said only two in 10 voters said the ban would influence their vote, and within that group 80% said they had merely become more certain of a choice already made. He said the measure had eliminated an entire market overnight and was causing thousands of redundancies, and that it had not had the expected electoral effect. On the financial data, he said the situation described by those surveyed was much less severe than that repeatedly indicated by surveys by other economic sectors, which he said had wrongly attributed a supposed financial disaster to betting. He asked where the impact on Brazilians' finances caused by betting was, given that more than seven in 10 Brazilians rated family indebtedness from excellent to regular and almost 70% placed purchasing power in the same categories.

ANJL was launched in March 2023 and represents the interests of its members, the sector and responsible and integrity-based gambling, according to the association. Its members include Aposta Ganha Loterias, Fast Gaming, OiG Gaming Brazil, Ana Gaming Brasil, Esportes Gaming Brasil, SPRBT Interactive Brasil, Defy, LBBR Aposta de Quota Fixa, Lucky Gaming, Reals Brasil, Gamewiz Brasil, BETBR Loterias, Versus Brasil, SorteNaBet Gaming Brasil, Blow Marketplace, Sistema Lotérico de Pernambuco, Vanguard Entretenimento Brasil, Hiper Bet Tecnologia, Pocket Games, ODDSGATE Brasil, Upbet Brasil, EB Intermediações e Big Brazil Tecnologia e Loteria, EBAC, TaDa Gaming, BB Gaming Legitimuz Tecnologia and JogaJunto.