Brazil sees a further round of political manoeuvres related to the fiscal structure of the Bets online gambling regime. Though a 15% CIDE tax is removed from its host bill, its tax charge remains alive in political ranks cites Leonardo Biazzi of SBC Noticias Brazil

Yesterday, the Chamber of Deputies signed off on Bill No. 5,582/2025, which takes on the title of the ‘Anti-Racketeering Bill’ (PL Antifacção).

The Bill is not specific to the governance of gambling, as its texts are drafted to adopt new measures and legal determinations to strengthen Brazilian law in prosecuting organised crime. If sanctioned, the Bill will serve as complementary utility to the Bets regime in how it determines criminal activities linked to illicit gambling.

Of significance for Brazil’s judiciary, the Bill seeks to define the legal characteristics of racketeering structures and how they are utilised by organised criminal gangs and militias. 

The gravest offences, particularly those deemed to constitute “structured social domination”, will carry prison sentences ranging from 20 to 40 years under the new framework.

Politics of attachment

However, during its design and passage through Congress, the Bill became entangled with the politics of gambling taxation.

The version approved by the Senado Federal in December 2025 included an attachment creating CIDE-Bets as a new fiscal measure on gambling licences. 

CIDE-Bets is the controversial proposal to impose a 15% surcharge on fixed-odds betting operators, projected to be applied as a Selective Tax under Brazil’s 2027 fiscal reforms.

However, upon sign-off, deputies chose to withdraw the text carrying the CIDE-Bets orders to impose a “15% contribution in the economic domain on fixed-odds betting, an intervention that will be welcome by licences, but the polemics are far from over. 

Support for CIDE-Bets was believed to be supported by government-aligned deputies and as a bargaining chip in negotiations with President Inácio Lula da Silva.

The mandate was carried by PT minister Lindbergh Farias, who told Congress that a further charge on Bets licences would generate up to R$30bn (circa €5bn) for projects related to public security.

Farias and supporters framed the attachment of CIDE as a necessary mechanism to ensure that Brazil can finally progress on the modernisation of its prison system, a mandate ordered by the Supreme Court in 2023 on its ruling of Pena Justa (‘fair sentences’) which deemed current Prison Standards as an “unconstitutional state of affairs”.

However, industry stakeholders pushed back immediately. The Instituto Brasileiro de Jogo Responsável (IBJR) demanded that CIDE-Bets be detached from the Anti-Racketeering Bill, arguing that lawmakers supporting additional taxation should introduce a specific, dedicated bill to debate any new fiscal burden on licensed operators. 

The trade body warned that attaching a sector tax to a criminal justice reform risked undermining legal certainty for a market that only formally launched on 1 January.

Tax… never dies

The dispute also lands against the backdrop of a tax framework that has already undergone significant revision.

Under Lei 14.790/23, licensed fixed-odds operators are currently subject to a 12% tax on Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR), alongside corporate income tax and social contributions, municipal service taxes where applicable, and substantial licensing and compliance costs.

Following extensive negotiations in late 2025, Congress further adjusted the structure through Complementary Law No. 224. Lawmakers rejected the PT government’s initial proposal to double the GGR rate to 24% in 2026.

Instead, they adopted a phased tier-plan increasing the GGR tax by 1% annually, lifting the base rate from 12% to 15% by 2028.

Against that already recalibrated fiscal settlement, CIDE-Bets was widely interpreted by operators as an additional parallel levy layered on top of the agreed structure. In a decisive move, deputies removed the 15% surcharge from the final Chamber text before approving the Bill.

For industry observers, the episode reinforces a central tension shaping Brazil’s online gambling future – the convergence of public-security narratives with fiscal recalibration. 

While the Anti-Racketeering Bill itself is a criminal law instrument, the attempt to attach CIDE-Bets demonstrates that the taxation of Bets remains politically fluid — even after Congress settled on a phased GGR framework just months earlier.

The Bill now proceeds to presidential sanction and is expected to be enacted as the Lei Raul Jungmann, in honour of the former Minister of Public Security. Meanwhile, the question of whether Brazil’s betting licences will face further fiscal adjustments remains firmly on the political agenda.