Despite widespread public support for the online betting ban, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is seeing little political reward ahead of Brazil’s upcoming presidential election.
A new Quaest poll reveals that 62% of Brazilian voters back Lula’s Provisional Measure to ban online betting across the country.
The poll was published just nine days before the first round of the presidential election, making the timing of the measure politically significant from the outset.
According to Quaest, Lula leads Flávio Bolsonaro by 39% to 34% in the first round, with the two candidates tied at 42% each in a potential runoff.
Polymarket continues to give Flávio Bolsonaro a 58% chance of winning the upcoming presidential election, suggesting the betting ban has not shifted momentum decisively toward Lula.
Lula signed Provisional Measure 1,394 on 25 September, which took immediate effect, preventing operators from accepting any new deposits from players.
Players were given until 23:59 on 5 October to withdraw their funds, with licensed betting sites set to go offline from midnight on 6 October.
The move represents a sharp policy reversal, given that sports betting was legalised under Michel Temer in 2018 and Lula’s own government launched a regulated market in January 2025.
Trade groups have already petitioned the Supreme Court to suspend the measure, proposing either an exemption for existing licensees or a transition period of at least six months.
The Finance Ministry estimates R$1.7 billion, approximately US$330 million, currently sits in bettors’ accounts across the country.
A social-media study by consultancy AP Exata, based on 180,000 posts, found that 68.2% of online discussion about the ban did not mention Lula at all.
Of those posts that did reference the president, 18.6% praised, credited, or defended him, while 7% criticised him or questioned the timing of the measure.
“Many people see it as electoral opportunism,” AP Exata chief executive Sergio Denicoli told CNN Brasil, noting that Lula himself signed the 2023 law that originally regulated betting.
Lula’s Workers’ Party views the ban as a policy success and hopes it will attract undecided voters in the closing days of the campaign.
“It was regulated, but it did not work,” Lula said on the Band network’s Canal Livre programme, defending the administration’s decision to reverse course on online betting.
