Brazil’s National Congress returns from recess on 1 August, and the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is expected to use the session to press for the removal of online casino games from the country’s regulated betting market.
The vehicle is Bill PL 2,258/2026, filed in May by Workers’ Party (PT) deputy Paulo Pimenta. The bill does not dismantle the regulated system. It targets one segment: online casino products whose outcomes are produced by electronic systems or algorithms. Fixed-odds sports betting and the official lotteries stay legal.
PL 2,258/2026 revokes the section of Law 14,790/2023, the Bets Law, that permits wagering on virtual online gaming events. The Bets Law came into force on 1 January 2025 and created Brazil’s first national framework for online gambling. The bill also sets a full advertising ban on electronic gambling games, going further than earlier proposals that restricted broadcast slots or ad formats. Its scope covers platforms based outside Brazil and accessible to people inside it, regardless of the currency or payment method used.
Election timing shapes the agenda
Congress has a narrow window. Official campaigning for the general election opens on 16 August, leaving lawmakers roughly two weeks of normal legislative work before political attention moves to the campaign.
Lula has spent months sharpening his position on online gambling, arguing that the current model does not protect consumers in financial difficulty and questioning whether licensed operators face adequate oversight. He has called publicly for a ban on online betting platforms, and in May he told Poder360 he would take the issue into the campaign. Translated from Portuguese, he said:
I am in favour of ending all those bets that are not providing any service of utility to this country.
He has also described the problem in domestic terms, saying the casino is now inside people’s homes.
The electoral logic is explicit. Communications Minister Sidônio Palmeira has treated gambling as an issue with traction among conservative and evangelical voters, a bloc the PT is trying to win back before October. Government messaging on betting has run alongside its push to end the 6×1 working week, aimed at the same audience.
The administration is also expected to keep using the Jogo do Tigrinho, the nickname attached in Brazil to the Fortune Tiger slot title and, more loosely, to unlicensed platforms promoted by social media influencers. It has become shorthand for public concern about illegal operators, consumer losses, fraud and aggressive digital marketing.
Lula’s position two years on
The stance is a reversal of what Lula said in 2024, when he indicated he would accept legalised land-based casinos if Congress passed the legislation, framing them as a source of tourism, investment and tax revenue.
Ministers now emphasise household debt, financial fraud and consumer harm instead. The shift has tracked the approach of the election.
Three bills with momentum
More than 200 gambling-related proposals have been filed since the regulated market opened. Most have gone nowhere. Three have support behind them.
PL 1,808/2026, filed on 14 April by PT deputy Pedro Uczai, would repeal the online betting framework outright, covering operation, advertising, sponsorship, payment processing and intermediary services. At least 68 lawmakers have signed on to the Workers’ Party bill to ban fixed-odds betting.
PL 2,258/2026 takes the narrower route, keeping sports wagering and cutting online casino. A third effort would tighten rules on gambling advertising, sponsorship deals and influencer promotion, which would reduce the sector’s public presence without changing what operators are licensed to offer.
PL 2,258/2026 is still in the Chamber of Deputies awaiting formal committee assignment by the Speaker. Passage would require approval in the Chamber and the Senate, then presidential sanction.
What operators face
Brazil’s regulated market produced close to $7 billion in gross gaming revenue (GGR) in its first regulated year. Removing online casino would leave licensed companies paying for a licence covering a much smaller product set, in a market they entered on the basis that both verticals were available.
Negotiations between political blocs in August will decide which of the three proposals moves. Gambling policy is likely to be traded against other items on the pre-election agenda rather than settled on its own terms, and licensed casino operators have no version of the current session that improves their position.
Source: Câmara dos Deputados
