Brazil betting ban fails to sway voters

Candidates who made a ban on betting the centrepiece of their campaigns lost or trailed in Brazil's main states in the first round. The report said the position did not deliver the votes its advocates had expected, from Rio de Janeiro to Rio Grande do Sul.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed MP nº 1.394/2026 on 25 September, nine days before the vote, making online betting illegal, according to the report. The measure became a theme in the final week of the campaign and was taken up by candidates for governor in several states.

In Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes of the PSD promised to shut down Loterj and accused the previous administration of turning the state into a betting haven. A Datafolha poll on the eve of the vote gave him 46% of valid votes against 38% for Douglas Ruas of the PL, but the count reversed the result: Ruas took 49.27% and Paes 42.76%, according to the TSE, and the contest did not go to a second round.

On 8 October the TSE confirmed the rejection of Anthony Garotinho's candidacy and annulled his 274,411 votes, the report said. In the recount carried out by the TRE-RJ on Saturday 10 October, Ruas moved to 50.88% of valid votes and Paes to 44.16%; the regional court is due to proclaim the definitive result at a session on 15 October.

Paes ally Pedro Paulo, also of the PSD, received 1,904,352 votes for the Senate and was not elected, according to the report. Loterj, the target of the extinction promise, directs 70% of its resources to social projects, including shelters for women who are victims of domestic violence.

In Minas Gerais, Patrus Ananias of the PT called the ban "um novo começo" for families and took about 26% of valid votes, while governor Mateus Simões of the PSD, who banned betting advertising in stadiums and announced R$32m for clubs, had less than 5%. Cleitinho Azevedo of the Republicans won in the first round with about 55%; the report described him as a long-standing critic of betting who kept the subject out of his campaign.

In Rio Grande do Sul, Juliana Brizola of the PDT recorded a video in support of the measure and took about 32%, while Marcelo Maranata of the PSDB, who also campaigned on the issue, finished below 2%. Luciano Zucco of the PL was elected with about 58% after calling the MP "claro ato de desespero eleitoral".

In Paraná, Requião Filho of the PDT was the only candidate to put betting into the campaign and lost to Sergio Moro of the PL, elected with 50.10%, the report said. In Pernambuco, João Campos of the PSB held a sign reading "fim das bets" beside Lula and finished with 44.81%; in Ceará, Ciro Gomes of the PSDB, who favoured the ban, had 46.52%; and in Bahia, federal deputy candidate Juliana Prates of the Republicans made the anti-betting agenda the centre of her Instagram campaign and received 3,493 votes.

The report noted exceptions: Jerônimo Rodrigues of the PT, who welcomed Lula's decision, was re-elected in Bahia with 55.80%, and Raquel Lyra of the PSD, who praised the president for taking up the fight and announced financial support for clubs, was re-elected in Pernambuco with 53.25%. Both were running for re-election.

BNLData said the result was consistent with earlier polling it gathered: support for a ban was broad but had little effect on voting. It cited Cruz Consulting/ANJL, in which 68.1% of beneficiaries of social programmes said the betting position would not change their vote and only 1% would move to a candidate backing a ban; More in Common/Ipsos-Ipec, with 58% saying they would not change their vote because of betting; Indexa/Broadcast, with 70% in favour of a ban but 63% saying the issue does not influence their vote and only 14% saying it influences it a lot; and Palver, with only 1% considering a change of vote after the ban.

The report said data obtained from the Ministry of Finance under the Access to Information Law showed Brazil had more than 31 million bettors on 31 July 2026. It was reported that if 10% of those recreational bettors, about 3 million voters, were upset by the decision, it could affect Lula's re-election; in the first round the difference between Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro was less than 2.5 million votes.

Lula goes to the second round on 25 October behind Flávio Bolsonaro of the PL, according to the report, which said members of the campaign came to assess that the ban harmed the president and that he left the subject out of public remarks after the vote. Murilo Hidalgo, president of Instituto Paraná Pesquisas, told Revista Oeste that the measure was a "tiro no pé" and weighed negatively, mainly with football fans and clubs, adding that the government had stopped talking about it.

A Datafolha poll of 1 October recorded 78% of voters in favour of the ban, including 70% of Flávio Bolsonaro's supporters, the report said. It added that no poll yet establishes a causal link between the MP and the election result.