Brazil's Ministry of Justice and Public Security has identified a 75% rise in police reports that mention gambling dependency alongside violence against women, while a court in Santa Catarina has upheld a decision denying a separate bettor's refund claim.
The ministry's National Secretariat for Public Security (Senasp) counted 573 such reports from January through September 2026, compared with 327 in the equivalent nine months of 2025. It screened approximately 99.6m police reports nationwide and found 1,650 records involving violence against women or family members and a reference to gambling dependency between January 2020 and October 2026.
Of those 1,650 records, 1,101 were explicitly classified as violence against women. Physical injury appeared in 805, intimidation in 803 and debts or loans in 360.
Online slot games were mentioned in 248 reports. Sports betting appeared in 62, exactly a quarter as many. A further 812 referred to online gambling without naming a type or platform.
The counts measure mentions in police narratives. They do not establish that gambling caused the reported violence or that those described as dependent had a medical diagnosis.
Senasp also cautioned that reliance on the information given to police cannot capture every case in which gambling problems were present.
How court ruled in operator's favour in gambling addiction case
In a separate case reported on November 12, Santa Catarina's Fourth Civil Law Chamber unanimously upheld a lower court's refusal to order an online betting platform to refund deposits or pay damages to a bettor diagnosed with gambling disorder. His medical report was issued in March 2026, after the disputed deposits between 2021 and December 2024.
The judges said Article 26 of Brazil's 2023 Betting Law, which bars people formally diagnosed with gambling disorder from betting, could not invalidate earlier transactions retrospectively. They also found no proof the operator knew of the diagnosis, that the bettor had requested a block or betting limits, or that promotional messages caused his losses.
In January, a separate Santa Catarina decision ordered a betting platform to refund a player's losses after a trial judge found inadequate responsible gambling safeguards. The new appeal concerns another bettor and a different evidence record, including the timing of a formal diagnosis.
The ministry found mentions of urgent protective order requests or breaches in 825 of the 1,650 identified records
