ANJL measures how many social beneficiaries gamble in São Paulo
One in five beneficiaries of social programs who left regulated platforms, either due to a government block or by their own decision, ended up betting on clandestine sites. This is the data that most concerns the legal Brazilian industry within a survey that, in its headline, shows something else, as 83.47 percent of the beneficiaries surveyed in 39 cities in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo said they had never placed a fixed-odds bet.
The survey was conducted by Cruz Consulting between September 3 and 4, commissioned by the National Association of Games and Lotteries (ANJL), and its results were published on September 9. Of the total interviewed, 12.63 percent said they had bet in the past but no longer do so, and 3.9 percent continue to bet. Within the group that once used these platforms, 21.97 percent requested to be removed on their own initiative, and 5.49 percent indicated that the federal government blocked their access.
The president of ANJL, Plínio Lemos Jorge, asked to read the debt figures carefully and not to fall into generalizations, because, in his opinion, the indebtedness of Brazilian households is due to multiple causes and cannot simply be attributed to gambling. Lemos Jorge emphasized that the vast majority of interviewed beneficiaries had never used a betting platform, although he admitted that the diversion to illegal operators deserves attention and that the response must combine player protection tools with a sustained fight against clandestine offerings.
The survey comes as the federal government applies access restrictions for those who receive Bolsa Família and the Continuous Cash Benefit (BPC). Data from the Ministry of Finance indicates that more than 3 million people from these two programs are already prevented from accessing fixed-odds platforms, a restriction applied by order of the Supreme Federal Court (STF). The mechanism requires authorized companies to consult the CPF of each person attempting to register through the Betting Management System (Sigap), which indicates whether the user receives any of the benefits that automatically exclude them.
ANJL groups operators from Brazil's regulated betting market, which operates with federal licenses since January 2025. Its study adds to a debate on betting and indebtedness that gained another voice this week, that of Bradesco BBI, which in a sectoral report described the risk of debt linked to betting as marginal, although it recalled that 82 percent of Brazilian families have some type of debt. In parallel, the government is advancing with new requirements for platform design, within a stage of regulatory tightening for the sector.
Tags: National Association of Gaming and Lotteries, Bolsa Família, Plínio Lemos Jorge, Illegal betting in Brazil