Brazil’s SPA and Ipea sign cooperation deal to monitor betting market and study social impacts

Brazil’s Secretariat of Prizes and Betting and the Institute for Applied Economic Research have signed a technical cooperation agreement aimed at building public monitoring indicators for the fixed-odds betting market and producing evidence-based studies on the sector’s socioeconomic effects.

The agreement was signed on 14 April 2026 by the Secretaria de Prêmios e Apostas (SPA) of the Ministry of Finance and Ipea, and was announced publicly on 17 April. According to the two institutions, the partnership is designed to structure a public system of indicators to monitor Brazil’s regulatory policy for fixed-odds betting and to deepen research into the market and its broader socioeconomic implications.

Under the deal, Ipea will produce indicators and quantitative analyses based on SIGAP, the federal betting management system, and on other administrative databases such as RAIS and Cadastro Único. The stated goal is to measure critical variables for sector regulation, including the size of the illegal market, levels of household indebtedness linked to betting, impacts on bettors’ mental health, and risk factors affecting the financial system and sports integrity.

The government is presenting the partnership as a step toward more transparent, evidence-based regulation. The Ministry of Finance said the future indicator system should support stronger public-policy design and help qualify regulatory decisions under Law No. 14,790/2023, which established the current legal framework for Brazil’s fixed-odds betting market. SPA secretary Daniele Correa Cardoso said the partnership would help measure regulatory goals that still lack dedicated indicators, while Ipea president Luciana Mendes Santos Servo said it would improve the state’s ability to understand the sector in a way that is more transparent and aligned with the public interest.

In practical terms, the agreement matters because Brazil is moving from the market-launch phase into a more analytical stage of oversight. Until now, much of the focus has been on authorisation, enforcement and rulemaking. By bringing Ipea into the process, the government is signaling that the next phase will also be about measuring whether regulation is actually working — not only in market terms, but in relation to debt, public health, illegal supply and wider social risk. If the project delivers usable public indicators, it could become one of the most important tools for judging the real impact of Brazil’s regulated betting model.