Datafolha Finds 78% Back Brazil's Betting Ban as Broadcasters Go to the STF

Brazil's betting ban polls far better than the market it replaced, but most voters say it will not decide their vote, and Lula has now said the election is why he acted. Broadcasters, operators and six football clubs have asked the Supreme Court to step in before licensed sites go dark on 6 October.

• A Datafolha survey of 2,506 people, carried out from 28 September to 1 October, found 78% in favour of banning betting and online casinos in Brazil and 18% against, up from 65% in favour in November 2024
• The same survey found that 81% neither bet nor lived with anyone who did, while a separate Indexa/Broadcast poll put support for a ban at 70% and found 63% of voters saying a candidate's position on betting has no influence on their vote
• President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on 1 October that he doubts Congress will have "the courage" to overturn Provisional Measure 1.394, and that the election was the reason he acted now
• The broadcasters' association ABERT has asked the Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) to suspend the ban, arguing it was motivated by the campaign, and the Brazilian Institute for Responsible Gaming (IBJR) has asked to join the operators' case with data on the illegal market
• São Paulo FC, with four other clubs, and Botafogo have also asked to join, but the docket of the operators' case against the measure shows no rapporteur and no decision two days before the first round

Two Polls Find a Popular Ban and a Low-Salience Issue

Support for ending betting in Brazil has risen since the government banned it. Datafolha, published by Folha de S.Paulo on 1 October, found 78% in favour of prohibiting betting and online casinos, 18% against and 4% without an opinion. Fieldwork ran from 28 September to 1 October, days after Provisional Measure 1.394 took effect, with 2,506 people interviewed in 152 municipalities, a margin of error of two percentage points and Superior Electoral Court (TSE) registration BR-08039/2026. In November 2024, 65% were in favour and 27% against.

Support was a majority in every group surveyed, according to Folha, and higher among women (82%) than men (74%), and among Lula's voters (85%) than those of his main opponent, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (70%). The survey also found that 18% bet online or lived with someone who did before the ban: 6% bet themselves, 9% had someone at home who bet, and 3% both. The other 81% did not. The share was 27% among voters aged 16 to 34 and 31% among recipients of the Bolsa Família cash-transfer programme, against 14% among non-recipients. Folha's report does not give the exact question wording.

The Indexa/Broadcast poll, published by Estadão on 1 October, interviewed 2,000 voters by telephone from 27 to 29 September (margin 2.2 points, TSE registration BR-00698/2026). It found 70% for a ban, 21% for allowing betting under stricter rules, 6% for the current rules and 1% for fewer restrictions. Asked whether a presidential candidate's position on betting influences their vote, 63% said not at all and 14% said a lot. A candidate defending stricter rules would make no difference to 68%, would raise the chance of their vote for 20% and lower it for 5%. Some 65% said betting contributes a lot to household debt.

Datafolha's voting-intention figures from the same fieldwork put Lula on 45% of valid votes against Flávio Bolsonaro's 40% ahead of Sunday's first round, with a run-off at 48% to 45%, according to Jornal do Brasil.

Lula Says the Election Is Why the Ban Came Now

Lula addressed the timing in an interview with Flow Podcast on 1 October. "Eu duvido que o Congresso tenha coragem de acabar com ela" (I doubt Congress has the courage to end it), he said, according to Poder360, adding that even some legislators were "sócios de Tigrinho" (partners in Tigrinho), the online slot game that has become shorthand for casino betting in Brazil. He said he had not grasped the scale of the problem until he met people in debt, and that "pelo fato da gente ter eleições, é que eu acabei mesmo, porque se eu não acabo e eu não ganho as eleições, jamais ia acabar" (it is because we have elections that I actually ended it, because if I do not end it and I do not win the elections, it would never end).

He also said regulation had failed, because "every time you regulate, another illegal one appears", according to ND Mais, and that there was no proof so far that the ban had won him votes, according to BNLData. The measure needs Congress's approval within 120 days, and Doutor Luizinho, leader of the Progressistas in the Chamber of Deputies, has said it will be dealt with after the elections.

Broadcasters, the IBJR and the Clubs Go to the STF

The Brazilian Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters (ABERT) filed on 30 September, asking to be admitted as amicus curiae and for the measure to be suspended until Congress has examined it or the court rules on the merits, according to Estadão Conteúdo. BNLData reports that the petitions went into ADI 8027, the National Association of Games and Lotteries' (ANJL) action against the measure, and ADI 7749, one of the older cases on the 2023 betting law. ABERT argues that the measure "peca por desvio de finalidade" (is vitiated by misuse of purpose) because it was issued mid-campaign with effects falling between the two rounds. It says broadcasters are direct addressees of the advertising ban and have been unable since publication to air new spots or sign or renew contracts, that demand for betting "does not disappear by decree" and will move to clandestine operators, and that the government itself placed fixed-odds betting under the new Selective Tax in 2025, choosing to tax the activity rather than ban it.

The IBJR, whose members account for more than 70% of regulated betting volume, asked on 1 October to join ADI 8027, according to BNLData. It cites H2 Gambling Capital estimates that about 60% of regulated wagering, some R$25 billion (approximately $4.8 billion) a year, will migrate to unlicensed operators, and argues that the Health Ministry's Technical Note 60/2026, prepared to support the measure, acknowledges a lack of Brazilian data on online betting. Industry counts of new illegal sites vary widely.

São Paulo FC filed with Ponte Preta, Vitória, Guarani and Portuguesa, citing a Superbet sponsorship worth R$95 million (approximately $18 million) in 2026 that is now suspended, and asked for a decision before the 5 October deadline for removing betting branding, according to BNLData. Botafogo cited its VBet shirt deal, worth $10 million a year until December 2027. The ADI 8027 docket shows seven amicus petitions on 1 October, after four on 29 September, but as of Friday no rapporteur and no decision.

A Popular Ban Is Not Necessarily a Decisive One

The two polls agree that the ban is popular and that most of its supporters are judging a product they do not use: on Datafolha's figures, at least three in four supporters live in households where no one bet. The 78% is therefore a measure of how betting is perceived, as a cause of debt and a drain on poorer households, rather than of how the market functioned. The electoral payoff looks smaller than the headline. Indexa/Broadcast found 63% saying the issue does not affect their vote, Datafolha's same fieldwork shows Lula holding a lead of about four points rather than pulling away, and Lula himself said there was no proof it had won him votes. A measure can be overwhelmingly popular without moving an election, and that is the more useful reading for operators planning beyond the run-off on 25 October.

Lula Has Handed ABERT Its Best Line

An argument that a measure is a misuse of purpose is normally hard to prove, because motive must be inferred. Lula has now stated it. That does not make the measure unconstitutional: a government is entitled to act on a popular policy before a vote, and the STF has generally been reluctant to strike down provisional measures on the tests of relevance and urgency. But it strengthens the case that the urgency was political rather than sanitary, at a time when the Finance Ministry told a records request it had no impact study. The broadcasters also widen the case beyond operators: an advertising ban touches commercial speech, which ABERT argues the Constitution allows to be restricted only by formal legislation, a question the court cannot answer by looking at gambling harm alone.

The Numbers Will Matter More in Congress Than in Court

An STF order arriving after 6 October would have to restart sites that are already returning players' balances through the banks. The polls are aimed at a different audience. Lula's dare rests on the 78%: legislators who vote to restore betting would be voting against a majority in every group Datafolha measured. Yet a fifth of Indexa/Broadcast's respondents preferred stricter regulation to prohibition, roughly the space the amendments already filed are trying to occupy. The figure operators should watch is Datafolha's 31% among Bolsa Família recipients: the households the ban is meant to protect are the ones most likely to have bet, and so the most likely to keep betting on the offshore sites that stay open after the licensed market closes.

Brazil's ban has public opinion on its side and an admitted electoral motive against it. The court will decide whether that motive matters in law; Congress will decide whether 78% is a mandate or a ceiling.