Lula bans online betting in Brazil days before election

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Friday signed an executive order banning online betting operations, just nine days before the first round of the presidential election on Oct 4, Reuters reports.

The provisional order takes immediate effect but must be approved by Congress within 120 days to remain in force. Users may withdraw funds until Oct 5, after which app stores and network providers must block betting sites from Oct 6, according to the Straits Times.

The move lands as opinion polls show Lula locked in a tight race with right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, eldest son of former president Jair Bolsonaro. Lula framed the ban as a public health measure: “It’s like cancer, you take out the tumor, or the tumor will kill us,” the AP reports. Finance Minister Dario Durigan called gambling “a public health issue”.

Lula also unveiled a debt relief plan: the government will spend 15 billion reais to buy up to 150 billion reais of delinquent loans at discounts of at least 90 per cent, via a November auction.

A 2025 study by the Institute of Studies for Health Policies estimated gambling costs Brazilian society 38.8 billion reais ($7 billion) a year, and surveys suggest roughly three-quarters of Brazilians support a complete ban. Online betting was legalised in 2018 under Michel Temer and regulated under Lula’s own 2023 law.

Senator Bolsonaro dismissed the ban as “populist, hypocritical and politically motivated” at a Rio de Janeiro rally.