Brazil’s gaming industry body IBJR has warned that the Novo Desenrola Brasil debt relief programme’s 12-month ban on licensed online betting platforms risks pushing participants toward an illegal market it estimates processes R$40bn annually.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced the programme on April 30 during a national Labor Day broadcast. It launched on May 4 under Provisional Measure No. 1,355. Participants can renegotiate overdue credit card, overdraft, revolving credit, and personal loan balances at interest rates capped at 1.99%, with debt discounts of between 30% and 90%. Enrolment requires accepting a 12-month block from all platforms licensed by the Ministry of Finance’s Secretariat of Prizes and Bets (SPA).
It wasn’t our government that allowed betting platforms to enter Brazil, but it is our government that will set limits on the damage they have been causing.
Lula said in his broadcast address.
IBJR: Illegal market is the real risk
The Brazilian Institute of Responsible Gaming (IBJR) responded by arguing that the programme’s success depends on a “rigorous fight” against unlicensed operators. Restricting access to the regulated sector, it said, can “stimulate the migration of users to clandestine platforms, which already move around R$40bn per year and operate without any inspection or consumer protection mechanisms.”
The IBJR also cited joint research it conducted with economic consulting firm LCA Consultoria, which found that bets made on licensed gambling websites account for only 0.46% of household consumption. The finding directly challenges the government’s framing of licensed betting as a primary driver of household indebtedness.
Combating the illegal market is the most urgent step to prevent unlicensed operators — often associated with organised crime — from taking advantage of restriction windows to attract vulnerable audiences.
The IBJR said in its statement.
Enforcement gap and market scale
The scale of Brazil’s unlicensed market makes the warning difficult to dismiss. The SPA had ordered approximately 39,000 unlicensed sites taken down by early 2026, including 14,000 in the first 120 days of the year alone. Roughly 190 operators currently hold SPA authorisation. The Desenrola access restriction applies only to licensed platforms — unlicensed operators face no equivalent technical enforcement mechanism under the measure as published.
The ANJL, Brazil’s National Association of Games and Lotteries, has raised parallel concerns. President Plínio Lemos Jorge argues that data from Serasa Experian — which recorded 82.8 million Brazilians in debt in March, primarily from general consumer credit — does not support gambling as a primary debt driver. The ANJL has stepped up direct dialogue with both the Presidential Office and the Ministry of Finance to present that data.
World Cup timing and revenue exposure
The IBJR specifically flagged the proximity of the FIFA World Cup as an additional risk factor. A shift of consumption toward unlicensed channels during a period of heightened sports betting activity could cost Brazil R$0.8bn in tax revenue, it estimated. The licensed sector contributed BRL 3.39bn to public coffers in Q1 2026 alone.
This concern sits alongside a broader trajectory of fiscal pressure on the licensed sector, which has faced successive tax proposals since the market’s formal launch in January 2025. Brazil’s legislature has already debated multiple competing tax frameworks for the sector, with operators warning that aggressive increases accelerate the channelisation problem the IBJR is now raising in a different context.
Legislative backdrop
The Desenrola betting restriction arrived alongside a more aggressive push in the Chamber of Deputies. Pedro Uczai, leader of the Workers’ Party bloc, filed Bill 1,808/2026 in late April, which would ban the operation, promotion, and intermediation of fixed-odds bets nationwide. The bill targets the legal framework established by Laws 13,756 of 2018 and 14,790 of 2023 that created Brazil’s licensed sports betting and online gaming market.
The Brazilian government has separately written to Google and Apple over the presence of illegal betting apps on their platforms — a parallel enforcement channel that would need to operate at scale to meaningfully reduce unlicensed market access for Desenrola participants.
Whether the SPA uses existing licensing mechanisms to enforce the platform block, and how that enforcement interacts with unlicensed operators, remains the critical open question. Until it is answered, the gap between the programme’s consumer protection intent and its practical effect on illegal market growth remains unresolved.
Source: Brazilian Institute of Responsible Gaming (IBJR)
