Brazil's betting revenue reaches $290 million in January 2026
The regulated sports betting and online gaming market in Brazil has started 2026 with figures that confirm its strategic role in the country's finances. According to official data released by the Receita Federal, federal revenue linked to the sector reached 1.496 billion reais (approximately 290 million dollars) during January. This volume represents a year-on-year growth of 2,642% compared to the same period in 2025, when revenues barely totaled 55 million reais.
This exponential leap has a fundamental technical explanation based on the market's implementation cycle. When regulation began on January 1, 2025, authorized companies only started paying taxes on their gross gaming revenue (GGR) from February of that year, leaving an almost zero comparative base for the first month of operation. Today, with an ecosystem of fully integrated operators and a robust oversight system, the lottery and fixed-odds betting segment has consolidated itself as one of the most dynamic sources of public funds within the state structure.
The report from the Center for Tax and Customs Studies highlights that, in addition to direct taxes on the activity, the Union's participation registered through Cofins/PIS-PASEP contributed another 61 million dollars (318.7 million reais). These figures demonstrate that the massive migration of users to the legal market has not only organized the activity but has also generated a constant flow of capital into public coffers, directly impacting the federal budget.
It is important to emphasize that the January 2026 results do not yet include the impact of the tax rate increase approved by Congress at the end of last year. The new tax structure foresees a staggered increase in the tax on GGR, rising from 12% to 13% in 2026, then reaching 14% in 2027, and finally 15% in 2028. The Ministry of Finance projects that this first percentage point increase alone will generate an additional 850 million reais during the current fiscal year. With this fiscal progression, Brazilian authorities anticipate that iGaming will continue to gain relative weight within the national tax scheme, becoming an indispensable pillar for the balance of public accounts in the coming years.
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