Brazil's presidential candidates skip betting ban in runoff debate a week before vote

Brazil's two presidential runoff candidates did not discuss the country's online betting ban during their first televised face-to-face debate on Sunday, October 18. Workers' Party front-runner Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Liberal Party candidate Flávio Bolsonaro met on Band, one week before the October 25 runoff. The debate focused on public security, the economy, the INSS scandal and the Banco Master case.

The omission stands out given how central the topic has been for the government. On September 25, Lula signed Provisional Measure No. 1,394/2026, which bans fixed-odds betting and online casinos. He described it as a response to household debt, and Finance Minister Dario Durigan called the election a "plebiscite on betting". Household debt did come up in the economic segment, but neither candidate linked it to betting.

First-round results were not what the government had hoped for, with Flávio taking 47% against Lula's 45%. According to O Globo, Lula's campaign believed in the days after the vote that the ban had hurt its performance. Lula avoided the subject in a TV Globo interview on October 15, but raised it on October 16 in Ipatinga, saying the network was "angry" because he "put an end to betting".

Flávio also had reason to steer clear. Hours before the debate, the Federal Police sent to the Supreme Federal Court (STF) a money laundering case involving the senator and lawyer Willer Tomaz. Investigators say Tomaz effectively controls Rede Loto, which received authorisation from Loterj, the State Lottery of Rio de Janeiro, in May 2023 to operate sports betting. Tomaz's defence denies this, saying Rede Loto never operated as a betting platform, and criticised the timing of the leak. Flávio had previously backed sports betting without online casinos.

Several industry questions remain unanswered. These include the emergence of about 30,000 suspicious websites after operators lost their licences, the loss of major football sponsorships, and the fate of the provisional measure in Congress and before the STF. The measure remains central to the sector's legal and economic outlook, and its future will depend on legislative and judicial developments and on the next government. For operators, workers and consumers, the debate offered no clarity on what either candidate would do after January 1.