BNLData estimates Brazil betting ban would forgo up to R$50.3bn by 2029

A prohibition of fixed-odds betting in Brazil would leave the state and society without between R$48.4bn and R$50.3bn by December 2029, when five-year authorisations end, according to an estimate by BNLData. The figure, equivalent to about R$15bn a year, covers two revenue streams interrupted by Provisional Measure 1,394/2026, published on 25 September, the report said.

The calculation combines the contribution on gross gaming revenue allocated to statutory beneficiaries with federal taxes paid by operators. It excludes municipal ISS, the inspection fee, which raised R$105m in 2025, and income tax on prizes paid to bettors; including those items would take the loss above R$50bn, according to the report.

Treasury data obtained by BNLData through freedom-of-information requests to the Secretariat of Prizes and Betting at the Ministry of Finance (SPA/MF) show that the GGR contribution yielded R$6.64bn for the statutory beneficiaries of Law 14,790/2023 over 17 months of the regulated market. The money went to the sports and tourism and education ministries, the National Public Security Fund, Funapol, the Federal Police fund, and Sisfron, the Army's border monitoring system. In the first half of 2026 alone, public security received R$341m and sport R$427m.

At the average pace of the last 12 months, R$413.5m a month, statutory beneficiaries would lose about R$5bn a year, the report said. It put the loss to 2029 at R$16.1bn, or R$18bn with the 14% rate in 2027 and 15% rate in 2028 approved by the government.

Operators also paid taxes directly to the federal government. In 2025 the Federal Revenue collected R$9.95bn in corporate income tax, social contribution on net profit, PIS/Cofins and social security contributions from the sector; at that level over the 39 months remaining on the authorisations, the Union would forgo R$32.3bn, according to the estimate, which the report described as conservative because 2025 was the market's implementation year.

The report said a ban would not end betting but would end taxed betting, adding that after 22 months of regulation the illegal market still accounted for more than 40% of activity. Without the legal market, it said, bettors move to unlicensed sites without age checks, data protection or responsible-gambling tools, and the state bears the cost of enforcement and of treating gambling disorder.

The estimate comes alongside spending measures in the election year. The report cited differing totals for the measures: R$290bn, R$298.4bn according to the Senate-linked Independent Fiscal Institution (IFI) and R$405bn according to Estadão's Gastômetro, with the government communications secretariat (Secom) disputing the Estadão methodology. It also cited a package for micro-entrepreneurs announced at the Planalto Palace 12 days before the second round, providing forgiveness of R$12.6bn in debts to the Union and potentially benefiting 3.6 million MEIs, with the government estimating a fiscal impact of R$1.57bn in 2027, R$3.15bn in 2028 and R$3.38bn in 2029.

The report said the government would have to send Congress a change to the 2027 annual budget bill (PLOA) reallocating at least R$39.9bn in spending to accommodate campaign measures, after the proposal was sent on 31 August. It cited a 15% increase in Bolsa Família costing R$22.7bn more next year and a new Desenrola programme with R$5bn in additional spending, and said the economic team's estimate for the forgoing of revenue from betting and MEIs is about R$6bn, against the report's figure of more than R$16bn.

Gross debt stood at 71.7% of GDP at the end of 2022 and reached 82.9% in August, with about 90% of the Union's primary spending mandatory, the report said. It said the economic team is preparing measures to contain spending growth and is expected to formally pursue the centre of the fiscal target in 2027, and that the decision on the betting provisional measure falls to a Congress in which the Liberal Party will hold the largest bench from February with 121 deputies.