Brazilians have opened more than 10,000 lawsuits against online betting companies since the Betting Law was signed in the final days of 2023.
Last year alone, once the regulation for the sector actually took effect, 5,488 new cases were filed, and the pace looks set to accelerate further in 2026, with 4,037 cases already opened between January and May.
The numbers track the growing reach of online gambling in Brazil, a market that generated over a billion dollars in revenue for operators last year and offers a clearer picture of the friction between bettors and betting companies that has surfaced repeatedly on social media in recent months.
Predictus used artificial intelligence to identify cases involving at least one betting company as a party, drawing from a database of 630 million lawsuits linked to court repositories across the country.
Because the wave of litigation is recent, most cases remain unresolved: of the 10,627 lawsuits filed since 2018 and mapped by Predictus, only 38% have reached a decision, 44.1% are still in progress, and 17.9% were dismissed without a ruling on their merits.
The single largest complaint involves difficulty withdrawing winnings, split across three related issues: outright withdrawal blocks, which drove 429 lawsuits, blocked accounts, cited in 636 cases, which bettors say prevented them from claiming winnings; and unilateral changes to platform rules, behind 629 cases.
Recently, Brazil's regulated betting market recorded nearly 10 million active users in March, according to data from the Federal Government's Betting Management System, with Rio de Janeiro emerging as the leading hub for activity with 1.8 million registered users.
Of the 3,438 cases already decided, bettors won fully (589) or partially (1,446) in 59.2% of rulings. Betting companies won in 40.8% of decided cases (1,403). A further 607 cases, 5.7% of the total, ended in settlements between the parties
