Brazil Sets October 6 Deadline To Shut Down All Online Betting
Brazil's government has ordered every licensed online betting and casino operator to stop accepting new deposits immediately and shut down entirely by October 6, 2026, under a provisional measure signed by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The order ends a regulated market that had only been running nationwide since January 2025, less than two years after Brazil first legalised fixed-odds sports betting and online gaming.
Finance Minister Dario Durigan announced the measure, saying the government had concluded that the safeguards built into the original licensing framework had failed to protect consumers from gambling harm.
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Wind-Down Timeline For Operators
Bettors have until October 5, 2026 to withdraw their account balances. Operators must then consolidate remaining customer funds by tax identification number on October 7 and 8, before refunding those balances between October 9 and 14.
If a bank has trouble processing a refund, the state-owned lender Caixa Economica Federal will step in to handle it from October 14 onward.
Nearly 90 operators had been licensed to enter the Brazilian market, each paying a fee of 30 million reais, based on prior online casino licensing costs reported across the sector. Those operators are now expected to seek compensation for the abrupt closure.
Criminal Penalties Head To Congress
Alongside the shutdown order, the government is sending an urgent bill to Congress that would criminalise running, operating or promoting sports betting in Brazil, with proposed penalties of four to six years in prison. Payment processors that handle betting transactions would face two to four years under the same bill.
The Brazilian Institute of Responsible Gaming said shutting down the sector so soon after it was formalised would carry serious economic and legal consequences for the companies that built businesses under the licensing regime.
Industry And Political Fallout
The ban lands just over a week before the October 4, 2026 first round of Brazil's presidential election, in which Lula is running for a fourth term against Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, according to the BBC.
Lula described the betting industry as a threat that needed to be removed before it caused further harm to Brazilian families, while Bolsonaro called the crackdown politically motivated. The National Association of Games and Lotteries said the ban would cost billions in tax revenue and push gamblers toward illegal sites, and it is preparing a legal challenge.
Brazilian football clubs, which received 1.1 billion reais from betting sponsors in 2025 out of the 62.5 billion reais the industry generated that year, have also warned that sponsorship money will disappear once the ban takes effect.
Lula described the betting industry as a threat that needed to be removed before it caused more harm, saying companies would no longer be allowed to profit at the expense of Brazilian families. Senator Bolsonaro called the crackdown populist, hypocritical and politically motivated, arguing it was timed to help Lula ahead of the election.
