Brazil’s Secretary of Prizes and Betting (SPA) has signed a technical cooperation agreement with the national Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA) to develop a public system of indicators and studies focused on the country’s regulated betting market.
The initiative will use administrative data sources, including the Government’s betting management system, employment records and social registry databases, to measure key variables tied to the sector.
These include the scale of illegal betting activity, levels of household indebtedness linked to gambling, mental health impacts on users and potential risks to financial and sports integrity.
The goal is to create a structured, data-driven framework to monitor the effects of Brazil’s betting regulation. The indicator system is expected to support policymaking by providing empirical evidence on how the market is evolving and where risks are concentrated.
Daniele Corrêa Cardoso, newly appointed Secretary of Prizes and Betting, said the partnership will help address gaps in existing data: “The partnership with IPEA will be essential to measure regulatory objectives that still lack indicators, consolidating the regulated betting market.”
IPEA president Luciana Mendes Santos Servo added that the agreement strengthens the state’s ability to understand the sector through data.
“This agreement expands the State's capacity to understand, based on evidence, the impacts of fixed-odds betting, contributing to more qualified, transparent regulation aligned with the public interest," she stated.
The move comes as the Government increases its focus on the social effects of betting.
Recent data from the SPA shows that 462,831 people have already registered on Brazil’s federal self-exclusion platform, which allows users to block access to licensed betting sites.
That figure represents a 42% increase in just one month, up from 326,000 users, pointing to a rapid rise in the use of harm-reduction tools.
Brazil is considering restricting betting access for individuals in debt renegotiation programs as part of efforts to curb rising household indebtedness
