Lula: "My Personal Disposition Is to End the Bets" as the Campaign Weighs Action

Two days after calling betting "a disease", the president told a podcast there is "no good bet and bad bet" and that his campaign is weighing measures before the election. The licensed operators' association says the cases he cites predate regulation, and warns of a "paradox" in which a ban pushes the vulnerable into the illegal market.

• President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told the Desce a Letra Show podcast on 16 September that "my personal disposition is to end the bets", that there is "no good bet and bad bet" because "all bets live off gambling", and that the sector is "a disgrace in this country for the poor people who work and lose their money", according to BNLData
• He added that he must "listen to other people" and cannot take "an abrupt decision without thinking about its consequences"
• His campaign is preparing a video with victims of gambling addiction, Metrópoles reported, and is weighing measures before the election ranging from new advertising restrictions to action against online casino games such as the "Tigrinho" slot
• The Associação Nacional de Jogos e Loterias (ANJL) responded that the accounts presented to the president refer to experiences before fixed-odds betting was regulated, without saying whether the bets were placed with licensed or illegal operators, and called it "methodologically inadequate" to justify restricting the current market on that basis
• BNLData counts 30.9 million CPFs with an active bet in the first half of 2026 in the SIGAP system, R$8.7 billion in federal tax from January to July, up 76%, and 14 of 20 Série A clubs with betting sponsors, against a Quaest poll showing Flávio Bolsonaro ahead 42% to 40%

From "a Disease" to "My Disposition Is to End Them"

President Lula went further on Wednesday than he had at the weekend. In an interview with the Desce a Letra Show podcast on 16 September, he said his "personal disposition is to end the bets", and that there is "no good bet and bad bet" because "all bets live off gambling", BNLData reports. "Obviously I have to listen to other people, because I cannot take an abrupt decision without thinking about its consequences," he said. "But, sincerely, the bets today are a disgrace in this country for the poor people who work and lose their money gambling." On Sunday he had called betting "a disease, not a game" and promised a decision soon, after describing conversations with addiction victims including a man who had accumulated more than R$2 million in debt.

The campaign is turning the theme into content and possibly policy. Metrópoles reported that Lula will appear alongside victims in a campaign recording about financial losses and broken family, professional and social ties, and BNLData says the campaign is also evaluating initiatives against betting platforms before the vote, in a form not yet defined, from new advertising restrictions to harder action against virtual casinos such as the "Tigrinho" game. The sector reached more than 15 million Brazilians in the first half of 2026, the same report says.

The ANJL, which represents licensed operators, replied with a note whose central point is evidentiary. The account presented to the president, it says, refers to experiences that occurred before the regulation of fixed-odds betting, without clarifying whether the bets were placed with an authorised company or an illegal operation, and it is "not methodologically adequate" to use a pre-regulation experience to justify prohibiting or restricting the regulated market that exists today. The note then sets out what it calls the paradox of prohibition: a consumer who wants to bet does not stop because the legal market has been closed; demand migrates to clandestine platforms with no identification, no responsible-gambling tools and no debt-prevention mechanisms, and the organisations operating outside the law are strengthened. "A policy conceived to protect the most vulnerable may end up removing from precisely them the possibility of betting in legalised, supervised environments subject to protection mechanisms," the note says. It offers to work with the government and Congress on the rules, on conditions of responsibility, transparency and consumer protection.

The Arithmetic the Campaign Is Weighing

BNLData's analysis of why a ban could cost Lula the election lays out the numbers. The finance ministry's SIGAP system recorded 30,895,934 unique CPFs with an active bet in the first half of 2026. Quaest's 14 September poll put Flávio Bolsonaro ahead of Lula in a run-off for the first time, 42% to 40%, within the margin of error; the 2022 run-off was decided by 2,138,485 votes, or 1.8 points. Federal tax collected from betting between January and July was R$8.7 billion, up 76% on the same period of 2025, on course to exceed the R$9.95 billion collected across 2025. Fourteen of the 20 Série A clubs carry a bookmaker among their sponsors, 13 on the front of the shirt, with Flamengo's Betano deal worth R$268.5 million a year; the sector spent about R$1 billion on Série A sponsorship in 2026. An industry-funded study by LCA Consultores and Cruz Consulting, which BNLData flags as such, counts 15,500 direct and indirect jobs. The same outlet's debate coverage this week found that no candidacy proposing restriction or abolition has explained how the tax revenue would be replaced.

The President Has Said the Word, and the Campaign Has Not Yet Written the Policy

"My personal disposition is to end the bets" is as far as a sitting president can go without an instrument, and Lula was careful to add that he cannot act abruptly. The gap between the sentence and a decree is where the next three weeks will be fought. The ANJL's reply is not about whether harm exists; it is about whether the government has a lawful basis to close a market it licensed two years ago on the strength of stories from before it did so. That is a narrow argument and a strong one, and it explains why the campaign's options, as BNLData reports them, run from advertising restrictions, which need no new law, to action against online casino games, which the government is already reported to be drafting. A total ban is the one option nobody has costed.

Thirty Million Bettors Is a Constituency, and Both Sides Are Counting It

The licensed sector's most effective argument in an election is not fiscal; it is that the people the president describes as victims are also voters, thirty million of them by the regulator's own count, in a race one poll now has him losing. BNLData's point that a tenth of that base moving its vote would exceed the 2022 margin is a campaign calculation, not a policy one, and it is the calculation the ANJL wants the Planalto to make. The counter is that most of those thirty million bet small and would not vote on it, and that the harm story plays better with the far larger number who do not bet at all. Lula's campaign video is a bet that the second group is bigger. The notice served on Romeu Zema, the one candidate running on abolition, shows the sector has decided to fight both fronts at once.

The Sector's Ally Is the Finance Ministry, and It Has Just Written the Rules

The same ministry that collects the R$8.7 billion published rules this week giving banks 24 hours to freeze illegal operators' accounts, and its minister spoke for the president at this week's debate. A government that is simultaneously tightening enforcement of the regulated market and musing about ending it is a government with two positions, and the ANJL's note is addressed to the one that has the rulebook. The industry's best hope is that the ministry's position survives the campaign. Its worst fear is that the president's does.

Lula has told Brazil what he would like to do. The ANJL has told him the cases he cited happened before the law existed. Neither has yet said what the law will be after October.