Monday, July 20th 2026 - 00:06 UTCFull article
Brazil's federal government collected close to R$10 billion in tax from licensed betting operators during 2025, the first full year of its regulated market, turning a once informal corner of the internet into a recognised line on the national accounts. For finance ministries across Mercosur watching their fiscal margins narrow, the figure is difficult to ignore.
The market known locally as “Bets” opened on 1 January 2025 under a framework run by the Secretariat of Prizes and Betting, an arm of the Ministry of Finance. Its design was explicitly fiscal. Operators pay a licence fee of R$30 million each and a levy on gross gaming revenue, the sum left once prizes are paid out. That rate started at 12% and, under legislation President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed at the close of 2025, rises to 13% in 2026, 14% in 2027 and 15% from 2028, with a slice of the proceeds earmarked for social security. Around 85 companies now hold licences covering close to 190 authorised sites, and roughly 25 million taxpayers placed a bet over the year.
The early returns validated the premise. Betting and gaming activity generated about R$3.4 billion in federal tax in the first quarter of 2026 alone, the Federal Revenue Service reported, more than double the same period a year earlier, and Brazil closed its debut year as the fifth largest sports betting market in the world. That trajectory matters to a treasury under pressure. Brasília has been searching for revenue wherever it can find it, from a contested crude oil export levy that a federal judge suspended in April for five international producers to a sweeping overhaul of indirect taxation. Against that backdrop, a sector that feeds the accounts without a fresh consumption tax on households holds obvious appeal.
