The entities are requesting a court order for President Lula’s government to share, within 15 days, a database containing the CPF (individual taxpayer ID numbers) of Bolsa Família beneficiaries with betting platforms.
The petition stipulates that, in the event of a conviction, a fine of R$500 million (US$90m) should be imposed on betting companies — money that would be directed to assist families in vulnerable situations.
The lawsuit was filed by Educafro and the Mônica Paião Trevisan Center for the Defense of Children and Adolescents, organizations focused on defending vulnerable social groups and social rights. The targets are the federal government, the betting companies, and IBJR (an institute that represents many betting sites).
According to the attorneys, Central Bank data shows that beneficiaries of the program sent R$3 billion (US$530m) to these companies. Currently, Bolsa Família serves nearly 54 million families.
“These numbers are alarming and show a misuse of public funds intended to combat hunger and poverty,” wrote attorney Márlon Reis, one of the petition's authors.
Reis states that the initiative aims to ensure that resources designated for vulnerable people are used for their intended purposes.
“Our main goal is to return to the Ministry of Social Development all the money that illegally ended up in the coffers of betting companies. It is unacceptable for funds meant to fight food insecurity and promote school attendance and healthcare for children and adolescents to be appropriated in this way,” the lawyer told news outlet Congresso em Foco.
The entities are also requesting that betting sites include warnings in their advertisements stating that funds from social programs cannot be used for gambling and that they alert the public to the social, economic, and psychological risks involved.
Government omission
Despite rulings from the Federal Supreme Court (STF) and warnings from the Federal Court of Accounts (TCU), the federal government has yet to take effective measures to prevent families registered in CadÚnico (Unified Registry for Social Programs) from accessing betting platforms, according to the plaintiffs.
They argue that it is technically feasible to block the CPFs of these users through data matching, without violating the General Data Protection Law (LGPD), as long as gambling operators implement automated exclusion filters.
What the lawsuit requests
The petition asks the courts to:
* require the defendant companies to implement a CPF-based exclusion system to prevent the registration and continued access of CadÚnico beneficiaries;
* summon the federal government to take action against the companies and the institute representing them;
* order the companies and IBJR to pay R$500 million in collective moral damages, with the funds allocated to the Fund for the Defense of Diffuse Rights (FDD) or to public policies and projects focused on preventing gambling addiction, protecting vulnerable families, and promoting food security;
* require full restitution to the Ministry of Social Development, to be exclusively directed to CadÚnico beneficiaries, of all amounts received from transactions involving CPFs in the registry;
* immediately block access to betting platforms by Bolsa Família and other social program beneficiaries while the case is under judgment.
Supreme Court actions
The petition references STF rulings in two Direct Actions of Unconstitutionality (ADIs 7721 and 7723), in which Justice Luiz Fux ordered the government to prevent the use of social program funds for gambling. According to the plaintiffs, despite this directive and TCU warnings, the issue has worsened, requiring urgent judicial intervention.
The Central Bank study identifying the use of Bolsa Família funds for gambling was conducted at the request of Senator Omar José Abdel Aziz (PSD-AM), who sought a technical analysis of Brazil's gambling and betting market. The goal was to gauge the size of the market in the country.
The revelation prompted a response from Social Development Minister Wellington Dias, who is responsible for Bolsa Família. He said at the time that he would block the use of program funds for betting. However, the government has not yet found mechanisms to enforce such restrictions. The lawsuit filed by the two entities seeks to address this challenge.
A dilemma
“The Bolsa Família card is intended to meet the family’s needs — food and others. Clearly, gambling is not a necessity. To avoid creating prejudice against Bolsa Família cardholders, the general rules for all cards also apply to the Bolsa Família card,” Wellington Dias explained at the time, adding that regulated betting operators were assisting the government in blocking such transactions.
The minister expressed concern about stigmatizing program beneficiaries due to the actions of a few:
“When we look at the Brazilian population, 52 million people gamble. Among Bolsa Família recipients, that number is 3 million. In proportional terms, 52% of the general population and 17.5% of Bolsa Família recipients gamble. Only 1.4% actually used the program card for this. My main concern is avoiding the demonization of Bolsa Família recipients and those of other social programs.”
Source: GMB
