The Brazilian Institute of Responsible Gaming (IBJR) views the data released by ABRAS with concern, as they do not prove that the ban on betting led to an increase in food purchases. Establishing such a link requires assessing how much consumption would have grown regardless, taking into account household income, employment, prices, and available resources.
The organization’s own surveys show that food retail was already growing significantly before the ban. According to the ABRAS/NIQ weekly monitoring report, nominal sales increased by 7.9% between September 14 and 20, before the provisional measure, and by 7.4% between October 5 and 11, compared with the same weeks in 2025. This historical context must be considered before attributing October’s performance to the ban. In its analysis of August, ABRAS itself linked increased consumption to improvements in employment and income, as well as lower food prices, with real growth of 2.71% in household consumption over the year. These factors predate the ban and must be distinguished from those attributed to the measure.
The decline in transactions via Pix also does not support the conclusion that the money was spent at supermarkets. The number of transfers does not reveal how much households stopped spending on betting, where that money went, or to what extent betting continued on illegal platforms.
For the same reason, the technical basis for figures circulating in the debate must be clarified, including the R$143 billion that betting operators allegedly took away from retail and the R$62.5 billion supposedly drawn from household income. According to the Ministry of Finance, the regulated market recorded approximately R$37 billion in gross gaming revenue (GGR) in 2025. GGR is the total amount wagered minus prizes paid out—in other words, bettors’ net spending with authorized operators. In the same year, household consumption totaled approximately R$8.1 trillion, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). GGR therefore represented around 0.46% of that consumption.
The R$62.5 billion figure, meanwhile, is based on an estimate derived from Pix transfers, without distinguishing between authorized operators and illegal platforms. The R$143 billion figure comes from an estimate of sales that retailers supposedly failed to make. Neither figure is equivalent to bettors’ actual spending in the regulated market. Before using them to draw conclusions about the sector, the methodologies, time periods, and markets considered must be clarified.