Brazilian fact-check challenges health minister’s betting figures at STF hearing

Health Minister Alexandre Padilha spoke for about 17 minutes at an STF public hearing on 3 November on MP 1.394/2026, which prohibited fixed-odds betting in Brazil. Padilha used slides to argue that the prohibition is the only and best public-health solution. Luiz Fux, who convened the hearing, praised the presentation and asked for the slides to be handed to his office.

A fact-check of the presentation reportedly found that, of 15 claims verified, only two hold up, and those with caveats. The fact-check said the others range from an arithmetic error to a false statement, including three different percentages for the same indicator.

One slide said 28 million people had bet in the previous 12 months and 10.9 million showed a risk pattern. The fact-check said these figures come from the Lenad III survey, published in 2025 with fieldwork in 2023. It said the 28 million (17.6% of the population) covered betting of any kind, including lotteries. According to the fact-check, bookmaker users numbered about 9.13 million (5.6%). It added that the group with a profile consistent with gambling disorder is 1.4 million people, or 0.8% of the population over 14.

One slide in the presentation referred to a 200% increase in demand at the SUS from 2018 to 2026. According to the fact-check, a different slide in that same presentation put the growth in consultations at roughly 140% between 2018 and 2025. The fact-check recalled that the Health Ministry had itself announced a 104% increase from January 2018 to May 2025, based on 10,553 consultations in that period. For absolute numbers, it cited a ministry report sent to the Senate that recorded 1,263 outpatient consultations for gambling disorder in 2024, and a ministry statement of 6,157 in-person consultations related to betting for 2025. A further slide stated that demand for consultations could grow 104% by 2028. The fact-check rated that claim as valid when read as a projection. For 2028, it reported an upper confidence bound of 3,726 outpatient consultations in the year and a lower bound of 1,552.

On self-exclusion, the fact-check said the 40% share of requests citing loss of control matches a May tally, while the August tally showed more than 1.3 million requests and 35.93% citing loss of control. It said Padilha attributed about 30% of requests to financial difficulty, whereas SPA tallies showed financial difficulty at around 11%. The fact-check also said self-exclusion works only for authorised operators, which consult the Sigap system. It argued that by ending the regulated market the MP emptied the tool the minister presented as an achievement.

Counting from the launch to the hearing, the fact-check found eight months of operation rather than ten. The most recent public figure was 27,703 people registered since the end of March, and the fact-check stressed that a registration does not amount to a consultation. The fact-check said the "166 vezes mais" figure sets capacity against capacity, 600 versus 100 thousand, and does not measure actual use.

On women's help-seeking, the fact-check said the 65% figure on shame refers to a subgroup of 9%, not to women in general. On suicide risk, it said the 15-times figure comes from a Swedish study of 2,099 patients diagnosed with pathological gambling in Swedish hospitals between 2005 and 2016. On the suicide-rate chart covering 2000 to 2024, the fact-check said the female rise computed from rounded values is 89.5%, while the slide states 92.5%.

The fact-check said the rise in primary-care mental health consultations, from 3.7 million in 2015 to 26.8 million in 2025, is about 624%, a small difference from the slide's figure. It said the growth in psychosocial care centres (CAPS) from 2.7 thousand to 3.1 thousand units is about 15%, not 39%.

The slide on food consumption after the ban used percentages from an October preview by ABRAS for food retail. The fact-check said ABRAS's own monthly index showed household consumption up only 0.59% in September over September 2025. It said it asked ABRAS for clarification on 29 October.

The fact-check rated as false the claim that Brazil is the first country of its size to ban betting, citing India's act of August 2025 banning online real-money games. It said China and Indonesia also prohibit such games. It also said Padilha admitted in the same speech that no country has shown a reduction in health harms by prohibiting.