Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has announced a ban on online gambling, just days before an election in which he is seeking a fourth term as the country’s leader.
Lula, who is running against the son of the incarcerated former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, signed a provisional order on Friday that “prohibits all sports betting and online casinos”.
The online gambling industry in Brazil was legalised in 2018 and has since been blamed for widespread household income losses due to addiction.
Lula said that the industry, which he has described as a “cancer”. “Either we remove the tumour, or it kills us,” he said.
The move comes just over a week before the first round of voting in Brazil’s presidential election. Recent polls have the 80-year-old leader almost neck-and-neck with Flávio Bolsonaro.
The new measures must receive congressional approval within 120 days to remain in force.
Lula acknowledged online betting was created under the former President Michel Temer’s administration but that it “grew without regulation under Bolsonaro’s management”, in a statement on X .
He said that there were “no restrictions” particularly for preventing children and adolescents from accessing online betting.
“We won’t allow betting companies to profit at the expense of Brazilian families’ income and lives,” the president added.
The president described how he had heard from families who had sold everything in their houses because of their gambling addictions.
Separate to the online betting order, Lula also signed a bill to penalise criminal offences related to fixed-odds betting.
Earlier this week, at the United Nations General Assembly, Lula accused the industry of “transforming addiction into profit”.
But Flávio Bolsonaro called the gambling crackdown “populist, hypocritical and politically motivated” during a campaign rally in Rio de Janeiro on Friday, according to Reuters.
Most types of gambling, such as casinos and slot machines, are illegal in Brazil, but ever since online betting was legalised in 2018, it has exploded in popularity.
About 59.9% of Brazilian adults support banning internet betting, a survey by Atlas and Bloomberg published this week has found.
