Brazil’s government has banned online betting platforms and their advertising. The decision has been branded in some quarters as a populist move, made just days before the first round of a general election that now goes to a run-off on 25 October.

The implications for Brazil’s football clubs, though, are potentially dramatic. Betting sponsorship accounted for around 34% of clubs’ commercial revenue in 2025, according to Galapagos Capital figures reported by AFP, and 14 of the 20 clubs in the Brazilian top flight have a betting company as their main shirt sponsor. Flamengo are an example of this dependency: their Betano deal is reportedly worth $46m a year, the biggest sponsorship agreement in South American football history. If the ban holds, clubs will lose a significant source of income through government intervention.

What the law actually does

On 25 September, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed a provisional measure that ends the “Bets Law” regime that had governed online gambling in Brazil since January 2025. A provisional measure takes effect immediately, before Congress votes on it, which is why the impact on clubs was felt so quickly.

In practice, the measure:

• Stopped new deposits immediately. Customers had until 5 October to withdraw their balances, with unclaimed funds refunded by operators in the days after and state bank Caixa stepping in if banks ran into problems.
• Took the regulated market offline. Every licensed betting site and app suspended operations on 5 October.
• Banned new advertising contracts immediately and voided existing ones after 6 October, with advertising and sponsorship signage to be removed by 5 October. This is the part that hits clubs directly.

The government has also drafted a separate bill that would create criminal offences around fixed-odds betting, including promoting it.

The ban is not yet permanent. Congress must vote to turn the provisional measure into law, and the clock on that pauses during parliamentary recess, meaning the final decision could fall to the newly elected Congress in early 2027. Industry associations have also asked Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court to suspend the measure as unconstitutional, and clubs including Flamengo, Botafogo and São Paulo have asked to join that case, seeking either a suspension or a transition period for their sponsorship deals.

The politics are moving too. Flávio Bolsonaro narrowly beat Lula in the first round, but his camp has shown little enthusiasm for online gambling either, so a change of president would not guarantee a return to the old regime.

The cost to clubs

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These lucrative deals are not easily replaced, and with clubs all competing for alternatives at the same time, the price of commercial sponsorship is likely to be driven down. Club budgets are also determined by future earnings, with spending commitments tied to commercial deals already agreed. Put simply, many Brazilian clubs may well have spent the money from these betting deals already. Flamengo’s president has said as much, publicly asking how the club will now pay for Lucas Paquetá.

Sudden regulatory change can expose how little flexibility exists in club budgets, and it is a warning to clubs globally that depend on any single revenue stream. Football has spent years treating betting sponsorship as a reliable pillar of its commercial model. The Brazilian case has demonstrated just how quickly that pillar can be removed.

Brazil’s government has defended the restrictions on consumer protection grounds, citing concerns about household debt, depression and other effects of gambling. Lula has also challenged the idea that clubs should be so dependent on betting companies to sustain themselves, arguing that betting accounts for “just” 7% of clubs’ total revenues.

Without getting too deep into the wider gambling debate, betting is incredibly difficult to ban outright. Even with laws in place, prohibition often pushes people away from one market and towards illegal, unregulated operators that can create an even worse problem for society. It’s worth noting that, according to Flutter, the illegal share of Brazil’s online betting market had been falling under the regulated regime.

Brazil’s experience is a reminder that sponsorship income is only dependable while the underlying industry remains legally and politically acceptable. Clubs globally cannot assume today’s lucrative commercial partners will remain available indefinitely.

The immediate challenge is finding replacement revenue. The longer-term challenge is building a model that can withstand regulatory change without passing the cost directly to supporters, players or staff.

Brazil’s clubs are now discovering the cost of losing betting money. The wider question for football is why so many clubs became so dependent on it in the first place.