All Bets Are Off On Brazil’s Presidential Election, Literally

On Tuesday, I received a personalized WhatsApp message from the Brazilian government’s official GovBR account — part of a blast the government began sending on Saturday: “Olá HARRISON. Informamos que foi publicada a Medida Provisória que proibe bets no Brasil,” (Translated: Hi Harrison, we inform you that a provisional measure, or executive order, was issued prohibiting bets in Brazil).

The text blast and the sudden betting ban — which will expire after 120 days unless approved by Brazil’s Congress — came just days ahead of the first round of Brazil’s October 2026 presidential elections, sparking immediate controversy among opposition figures and political analysts, who questioned whether the government crossed a line by using official government channels for campaign messaging.

The provisional measure banning betting, published on September 25, 2026, comes as Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — popularly known as Lula — faces his most difficult re-election since he first ascended to the Presidency more than two decades ago.

A former metalworker who lost a finger in a factory accident before rising through the union movement to found the Workers’ Party (PT), Lula governed Brazil from 2003 to 2010 and left office enormously popular, having established the Bolsa Família system — a conditional social welfare mechanism that provides financial aid to low-income families, who represent a little more than a quarter of Brazil’s population. But over the years, his record has been shadowed by corruption allegations. In 2017, he was convicted of corruption in the sprawling “Lava Jato” (Car Wash) investigation, serving 580 days in prison and missing the 2018 election. The Supreme Court annulled his convictions in 2021 on jurisdictional grounds based on reporting done by journalist Glenn Greenwald and The Intercept Brasil, and later ruled that the judge who sentenced him, Sergio Moro, had been biased. Lula returned to narrowly defeat Jair Bolsonaro in 2022. (RELATED: Brazilian Supreme Court Convicts Eduardo Bolsonaro Of Lobbying US To Help His Imprisoned Father)

This time Lula faces the son of former President Bolsonaro, Flávio. The Bolsonaro family’s politics in many ways glorify Brazil’s 1964–1985 military dictatorship, which Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain, has openly praised; in 2016, he dedicated his vote to impeach Lula’s successor, former President Dilma Rousseff, herself tortured under the regime, to Col. Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, who commanded one of the dictatorship’s most notorious torture centers. “They lost in 1964, and now they have lost in 2016,” Bolsonaro said at the time.

In September 2025, Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years in prison for what the court labeled a “coup plot” to overturn the results of the 2022 election. The court that annulled Lula’s prison sentence 5 years earlier was composed of eleven justices. But the same court that sentenced Bolsonaro was composed of only 5 justices, modified, it appears, to ensure a predetermined outcome. With Jair Bolsonaro convicted, his son Flávio will be on the ballot instead.

Against Lula and in Flávio’s corner is the U.S. government, which in May 2026 hosted Flávio Bolsonaro in the Oval Office after Lula’s own visit with Trump. While in the U.S., Flávio formally requested that the U.S. government designate the Comando Vermelho (CV) and the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) as foreign terrorist organizations, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio quickly announced the official designations just two days later, on May 28, 2026. But besides the CV and PCC, Brazil has two other large criminal factions: the Terceiro Comando Puro (TCP), whose adopted symbol is the Israeli flag and which is now Rio’s second-largest drug trafficking organization, and the Militias, former security and police officials who run protection rackets across the country, extorting Brazilian families, long suspected of being tied to the Bolsonaro family. Neither the TCP nor the militias received terrorist designations from the U.S. State Department.

But perhaps more than any other factor, what has caused such a tight race between Lula and Flavio is the corruption scandal that has engulfed the country’s top court, the STF, since last November. The two men at the center of the scandal are the ultra-wealthy playboy owner of the bank Banco Master and the nation’s powerful judge and chief censor Alexandre de Moraes — who has become a hero to the Brazilian left for presiding over the electoral court that barred Jair Bolsonaro from office in 2023, overseeing the case that sent him to prison (he is now under humanitarian house arrest), and for his various censorship orders which caused an international feud between the STF and X owner Elon Musk.

Vorcaro stands accused of a massive R$16.7 billion financial fraud scheme, artificially inflating his bank’s net worth using fictitious credit and diverting public funds, while the judge Alexandre de Moraes is under scrutiny over whether he tried to help Vorcaro evade the Brazilian justice system.

Justice Moraes’ wife received a R$131 million contract for legal services from Vorcaro while metadata extracted from Vorcaro’s phone showed that Justice Moraes personally accessed and edited the draft of the contract. A forensic report written by the Brazilian federal police shows that Moraes and Vorcaro communicated in the days leading up to the banker’s arrest using “one-time view” mode on WhatsApp. However, Moraes’ messages have so far not been recovered. Vorcaro’s messages have since been revealed, with the alleged financial criminal requesting that Moraes personally intercede with the head of the Federal Police in order to halt the investigation; A November 2025 message shows Vorcaro asking Moraes if he should flee the country. Though Moraes was not selected to the court under Lula, he is nonetheless heralded as a hero of the left for his many censorship orders targeting political enemies on the right.

Further tying Lula to the scandal is the role of STF judge Flávio Dino, a fierce ally of Lula’s who was previously Lula’s Minister of Justice and Public Security before being nominated by Lula to the Brazilian Supreme Court (STF). (RELATED: Trump Slaps New Steep Tariff On Socialist-Run Brazil)

When another STF judge unsealed the federal police report implicating Moraes this September, Dino officially requested a “pedido de vista,” or procedural pause for further review, effectively halting the Supreme Court’s investigation of Moraes’ relationship with Vorcaro until after the election.

The scandal and the perception of corruption have caused a collapse in trust and lowered Lula’s chances of re-election, which prediction markets and polls had previously regarded as a shoo-in for the PT leader. It is in this context that Lula this week issued a provisional measure to prohibit bets, hoping to win back votes before the first round of elections this weekend by targeting a predatory industry which has extracted record profits from often the poorest and most vulnerable populations in the country. Recently comparing the industry to a cancer, Lula insisted that Brazil either “remove the tumor, or it kills us.”

“We won’t allow betting companies to profit at the expense of Brazilian families’ income and lives,” the Brazilian President declared.

But despite Lula’s triumphant campaign on the provisional measure, the order is unlikely to survive past its 120-day window of effect. “The decision may well have effects, but it’s unlikely the text of the Provisional Measure will stay the same,” says Lorrana Melo, who studies the industry and has published in Brazilian outlets like The Intercept on the topic. “Congress and the Senate are expected to change the wording, and they have already signaled they will make changes,” adding that “it’s a complex scenario, with many interested actors and an extremely strong lobby, so it’s hard to see the MP actually passing.”

Melo is particularly concerned that Congress could gut Sections II and III of the measure, which establish digital platforms’ responsibility for policing gambling advertising. “It’s no use just banning this or that type of game,” she said. “You need to create the social and technological conditions for the rule to be enforceable.” The Brazilian gambling lobby is bolstered by football (soccer) clubs, each of which is now sponsored by at least one betting company.

As Lula prepared to announce the provisional measure prohibiting betting, Flamengo — the largest club in Rio and most popular in all of Brazil — released a statement titled “THE END OF BRAZILIAN FOOTBALL” which cynically asserted that the ban would put “a large part of women’s football and youth development” at risk by cutting off revenues. Those “revenues,” of course, are the gambling losses of their own fans. (RELATED: US Women’s Soccer To Get Equal Split Of $16 Million World Cup Winnings After Years Of Crying About Equal Pay)

Lula’s prohibition is in many ways equally cynical and manipulative. In December 2023, when Congress passed the law regulating sports betting, the Senate approved an amendment from Senator Carlos Portinho (PL) that would have banned online casino games, including Tigrinho, a cartoonish slot game featuring a smiling tiger designed like a kids’ game from the app store. It was Lula’s PT base, led by then-Senate leader Jaques Wagner, who voted against the prohibition, ensuring that the online slot game would remain within the legal framework.

Whether the ban lasts will depend on Congress acting in less than 120 days. It remains an open question whether Lula will be the President at the time of that decision.