From Terraces to TikTok: Betting on a Crisis

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In Brazil, football has long served as a lifeline. For a country often battered by inequality and political turmoil, the pitch offered something else entirely: skill, spontaneity, the chance for a moment of collective transcendence. Now, increasingly, it’s offering odds on whether the next corner will lead to a booking.

In recent years, the Brazilian game has found itself ensnared in a betting boom that feels more like a freefall. Since betting regulations were loosened in 2018, gambling has moved from the margins to the mainstream, especially in the footballing world. In 2025, it’s hard to find a club in the top flight without a betting sponsor on its shirt or a deal inked with a platform most fans have never heard of five years ago.

Losing the plot, and the plotline

From a distance, it looks like modernisation. Clubs struggling with finances—particularly in the pandemic years—needed new revenue streams, and the influx of betting money was too good to refuse. According to financial reports, gambling companies now pump more than R$1 billion (around £155 million) into Brazilian club coffers every year. Only two of the twenty Série A clubs currently play without some form of gambling-related sponsorship.

But what looked like salvation is increasingly being viewed, by fans and journalists alike, as a Faustian pact. Betting is no longer simply a side-hustle at the bookmakers or a few cheeky punts with your mate. It’s become embedded in how football is consumed, interpreted, even played. For many young fans, watching a match without betting on it feels incomplete—like tuning in to a soap opera with the sound off.

That shift hasn’t come without consequences. Addiction rates are on the rise. According to a survey by Instituto Locomotiva, 68% of Brazilians have gambled in some form, and one in ten report financial hardship from it. In São Paulo, referrals to mental health clinics for gambling-related issues tripled in 2023. These aren’t isolated cases. They're symptoms of a broader malaise.

From corner kicks to cornered lives

The most insidious development is the rise of micro-betting—wagers not on the match result but on specific, often minor, in-game events. Whether it’s the number of throw-ins, yellow cards, or goal kicks, every action becomes another potential spin of the roulette wheel.

The effect is exhausting. Matches are no longer moments of shared narrative tension, but a constant barrage of conditional outcomes. Fans aren’t watching to see who wins—they’re watching to see if they win.

A quote from a young bettor in a Deutsche Welle interview summed it up: “Even taking a shower, I’d hold my phone with my arm stretched out.” For some, it’s a joke. For others, it’s a very real depiction of life caught in a compulsive cycle, exacerbated by smartphone apps that never really log off.

Offshore money, onshore fallout

Perhaps the most troubling part of Brazil’s betting ecosystem is who actually benefits. Until this year, most of the betting operators targeting Brazilian fans weren’t even based in Brazil. Platforms like 1xBet, Blaze, and Betano operate from tax havens like Gibraltar, Curaçao and Cyprus. They advertise in Portuguese, cash in on Brazilian culture, but offer little in return—neither in tax revenue nor in responsibility.

Only recently has the government passed Law No. 14.790, which requires companies to obtain a licence (costing R$30 million), pay taxes, and limit their advertising tactics. The law also imposes a 15% tax on winnings over R$2,112—a move designed to target high-frequency gamblers.

But the implementation has been slow. As of mid-2025, only six betting companies have secured proper licensing. Many are still operating in legal grey areas, and none of the promised funding for mental health clinics or addiction treatment has yet materialised.

“Don’t bet on integrity”

When the 2023 match-fixing scandal broke in Série B, it should have been a wake-up call. Players were found to be intentionally committing fouls or handballs in return for payouts from betting syndicates. Several were banned. The clubs were embarrassed. The platforms, meanwhile, largely carried on as before.

The problem isn’t just about cheating—it’s about trust. If fans believe games are being manipulated for betting purposes, the whole structure begins to wobble. Football, after all, is built on a suspension of disbelief. Once that goes, so does the meaning of results.

And while clubs might claim they’re acting in their best interests, many fans feel differently. As one Corinthians supporter told O Globo,

“We sold our soul to betting. Now we don’t even recognise the game we loved.”

A culture under pressure

Gambling has always been part of football’s orbit. But in Brazil, it’s no longer orbiting—it’s at the centre. For many young fans, their first experience of football is through the betting app, not the ball. The thrill of a volley has been replaced by the notification of a cash-out.

And for those who can’t afford to lose, the fallout is brutal. Some are selling household items. Others are borrowing from loan sharks. Welfare payments are being redirected from groceries to gambling accounts. Addiction is increasingly affecting low-income households, where betting feels like one of the few chances at economic mobility—even if it rarely works out that way.

The clubs? They keep collecting the sponsorship fees. The platforms? Offshore, unaccountable, and happy. The state? Still playing catch-up.

From Cellblock to Startup: Betting’s New Low Point

It might sound like a rejected Black Mirror script, but it’s real: while serving time in the Tremembé penitentiary, a former Brazil international football player and a convicted hacker announced plans to launch a sports betting platform together upon their release.

Yes, you read that right.

In July 2025, Robinho—the ex-Brazil striker serving nine years for rape—and hacker Walter Delgatti Netto, best known for leaking Lava Jato messages and faking a Supreme Court warrant, announced plans to launch a sports betting company together upon release.

Delgatti reportedly pitched the idea during prison yard conversations: Robinho supplies the name recognition, he builds the tech. Their shared plan? Capitalise on Brazil’s booming gambling market by founding a platform that blends notoriety with “security”—from two men behind bars.

It would be laughable if it weren’t so telling. In a country where betting apps sponsor half the league, exploit addiction, and shrug off regulation, why wouldn’t convicts think there’s a place for them too?

The project is grotesque, but not surprising. It’s what happens when gambling becomes not a vice, but a viable career path—even in prison. For Robinho, no longer playing in the yard, no longer escaping legal fate, the post-football hustle is now just one more spin of the wheel.

In another era, this would be a sick joke. In today’s Brazil, it scans.

What’s left of the game?

Brazilian football has survived dictatorship, hyperinflation, and Neymar’s Instagram account. It may well survive this too. But what emerges won’t be the same. When the scoreboard becomes a stock ticker, and when goals are reduced to bets lost or won, football stops being a sport and becomes just another product—sold, branded, and ultimately empty.

For now, fans continue to sing. But beneath the chants, there’s a quiet resignation growing: that somewhere along the line, football changed sides. And the house, as ever, is winning.