Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has renewed his criticism of online betting, saying he would personally favour closing betting companies. No formal decision to revise market regulation has been announced.
Speaking during a live broadcast on 13 September, Lula said he had met eight people affected by betting and is considering further government action. He described a case of a bettor who made 1,400 transfers through the Pix system in three months, questioning whether the Central Bank should have detected the unusually frequent payments to a single company. Lula called the growth of betting "uncontrolled".
According to CNN Brasil, the Civil House is coordinating discussions on a possible provisional decree introducing additional restrictions. The text has not been published and the government has not officially confirmed it will issue the measure. Sources most often point to probable restrictions on online casino products, including slots and crash games.
In August, Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said more than five million people had been excluded from betting—through self-exclusion, restrictions for recipients of Bolsa Família and Continuous Cash Benefit, and blocks under federal debt restructuring programmes. That represents around 12.5% of the 40 million active CPF records in the SIGAP betting management system.
Health Minister Alexandre Padilha has proposed treating betting as a public health issue comparable to tobacco. He said that in eight months of operation, the centralised self-exclusion platform has been used by more than 1.2 million people, more than half of whom reported mental health problems and loss of control.
