For every R$ 1 collected by the federal government from bets in 2025, the associated social costs reached almost R$ 4. The companies in the sector collected about R$ 9.95 billion in federal taxes last year, whilestudy by the Institute for Health Policy Studies (Ieps)estimates at least R$ 38.8 billion per year in damages caused by gambling in the country.
The value calculated by Ieps does not only correspond to expenses from public coffers. The estimate includes direct and indirect costs, such as medical treatments, loss of quality of life and deaths. Only the health-related damages amount to R$ 30.6 billion annually. Other effects, such as the financial losses of the families themselves who bet, were not included.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) issued a provisional measure on last Friday (25)Prohibits the operation, offering, intermediation, and advertising of fixed-odds betting in BrazilThe measure covers sports betting and online games.
The MP immediately prohibited new deposits into the platforms' accounts. The websites and applications must cease offering bets ten days after the measure is published, and federal, state, and district authorizations will be extinguished at the end of the transition period set by the government.
The decision changes the treatment of bets in recent years. Fixed-odds betting had been legalized in 2018, during the Michel Temer (MDB) administration, and had grown rapidly during the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) administration. In the Lula administration, a new law sanctioned in December 2023 expanded the rules to include online games and established the authorization and supervision model by the Ministry of Finance. The regulated market began to function in 2025.
Health concentrates the largest part of social costs
According to Ieps, R$ 17 billion of the costs related to health are associated with deaths by suicide. Another R$ 10.4 billion corresponds to the loss of quality of life related to depression, and R$ 3 billion, to medical treatments for the disease.
Marcella Semente, one of the authors of the study, stated toBrasil de Fatothat the survey works with a conservative estimate. "The number we arrived at is conservative, very conservative," she said. According to her, individual expenses of families who lose money in gambling were not included in the calculation.
During the presentation of the provisional measure, the Minister of Health, Alexandre Padilha, informed that the SUS services related to pathological gambling and problems with betting increased by about 140% between 2018 and 2025. The department's projection is for an increase of another 104% by 2028.
More than 1.3 million Brazilians have already requested self-exclusion from platforms. Among them, 51% declared that the decision was directly related to health problems. The self-test available on Meu SUS Digital to assess the impact of gambling has been accessed by more than 170,000 people.
The data presented by the Ministry of Health also indicates that more than 28 million Brazilians had placed bets in the 12 months prior to a survey conducted in 2023. Of this total, 10.9 million had a gambling pattern classified as risky or problematic.
According to Ione Amorim, an economist at the Instituto Brasileiro de Defesa do Consumidor (Idec), the public response built over the past few years occurred when part of the damage was already established. "Money arrives as compensation for damage, not as prevention. When we act only after the problem is present, it is like cutting ice," she said toBrasil de Fato.
Between February 2025 and February 2026, of the almost R$ 5 billion collected by the federal government through the taxation of bets, approximately R$ 57 million were allocated to the National Health Fund (FNS) for prevention, control, and mitigation actions related to gambling, just over 1% of the total.
Money stops circulating and the government also loses revenue.
The revenue obtained directly from the platforms is only a part of the account.A studyby the Center for Research in Macroeconomics of Inequalities (Made), affiliated with FEA-USP, estimates that bets withdrew between R$ 120 billion and R$ 141 billion from the Brazilian economy in 2025, equivalent to 0.9% to 1.1% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The calculation is based on a net transfer of R$ 62.5 billion from families to platforms in the past year, the difference between the money allocated to bets and the values received back. According to the researchers, part of these resources ceased to finance the consumption of other goods and services.
The contraction of activity would have caused a loss of revenue between R$ 31.1 billion and R$ 54.8 billion. Made estimates that, even considering the revenue obtained by the government from the platforms, the net effect on public finances was negative between R$ 22 billion and R$ 46 billion.
Billions moved and few jobs
The volume of money moved by gambling contrasts with the number of jobs directly generated by the sector. Data from the Annual Social Information Report (Rais) cited in the report of the CPI of Bets pointed to 1,144 formal jobs, an average of 19 workers per company.
The presence of companies, however, has spread to other sectors through advertising, sponsorships and digital influencers. In 2025, the Secretariat of Prizes and Gambling concluded 412 inspection processes against digital influencers, removing 324 profiles and 229 irregular contents. On another front, more than 25,000 illegal betting websites were blocked between October 2024 and December 2025.
Ieps estimates that about 1.4 million Brazilians are in a problematic gambling situation. The survey also points to greater exposure among people with lower incomes and calculates that users of online platforms have four times more chances of developing gambling disorder than gamblers of other modalities.
"We cannot treat bets as a common financial market. It is an activity that causes harm to the structure of society and the health of the population. And it must be treated as such," says Ione.