Brazil's Lula says will ban sports bets if 'addiction' not regulated

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose government is trying to stop a sports bets craze consuming household incomes, said on Sunday he will ban online betting if regulation does not cure "addiction" by bettors.

Soccer-mad and bet-loving Brazilians have fallen hard for sports betting since it was legalized in 2018 and bank studies show that bets are hitting household incomes, reducing consumer spending and bankrupting families.

"If regulation doesn't work, I won't hesitate in putting an end to (betting) definitively," the told reporters after casting his vote in municipal elections in Sao Paulo.

Lula said it was unacceptable that low-income families that receive social security transfers through Brazil's Bolsa Familia program should be spending the money on bets.

Brazil's Secretariat of Prizes and Bets (SPA) published a list last week of sports betting companies licensed to operate some 200 brands of fixed-odds sports betting in what has rapidly become one of the fifth-largest betting markets in the world.

They include the biggest names in the betting world, such as Flutter Entertainment plc, the Entain group that owns Ladbrokes and Sweden's Betsson AB that operates from Malta.

The companies have to open offices in Brazil and associate with a local partner. Under new regulations, credit cards will not be allowed for use in betting. Hundreds of companies were rejected for not fulfilling Brazil's conditions.

Still, damage to household incomes, and mainly to poorer families, has worried the government and its concerns increased after the central bank reported that 3 billion reais ($550 million) was spent on bets in August by recipients of the Bolsa Familia program.

Lula called a cabinet meeting on Thursday to discuss whether to ban Bolsa Familia beneficiaries from betting, but no decision was taken.

Lula does not want to stop betting because Brazilians will bet anyway, he said, pointing out that bans have not stopped illegal cockfighting and the clandestine betting on numbers, a form of gambling called "jogo do bicho" that has existed since the 19th Century.

"Everyone knows that the person going to buy bread in the morning will make a small bet using the bread money," Lula said. "But what I cannot allow is betting to turn into a disease, an addiction, and for people to become dependent on it, because I know people who lost their house and car."

($1 = 5.4511 reais)

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Mark Porter)