Lotteries are the most popular form of gambling in Brazil in a way. The reason behind it is you see people of all ages, backgrounds and regions betting on the most popular lottery products.
Technically, only the state, at the Federal, State and City levels can operate lotteries in Brazil. However, it’s not illegal to bet on lotteries from other countries using the internet.
This grey area allows international operators to invest and attract the Brazilian public.
The jackpots of the local lotteries are significantly smaller than let’s say American lottery standards. Usually, the biggest jackpot of the year is in the house of 350m BRL ($70m).
The lottery jackpots of the most popular game Mega Sena usually is somewhere between 3m BRL ($600k) and 150m BRL ($30m) during the year, and the last jackpot of the year is a special event, which was mentioned above.
Nothing like the jackpots of up to $1B that we often see in the US.
Some companies are starting to explore this market, but the price of the tickets become wildly expensive for Brazilians. The current price of a Mega Sena ticket is 5 BRL ($1), and to bet on the PowerBall, for example, from Brazil, the price for that is around 73 BRL ($14) which is a lot of money for most Brazilians in terms of buying a lottery ticket.
Of course, there are ‘middlemen’ in this story who make a buck by making this bridge and organizing the international online lottery betting.
The recent regulation changes that have been ventilated in Brazil are not about online lottery gambling.
I believe that there’s room for improvement, and if American operators, for example, target Brazil as an online betting jurisdiction, there’s a lot of unexplored territory.
There are researches that show how Brazilians bet on lottery games whether they are very poor or rich. The last jackpot of the year on year’s eve of Mega Sena became a cultural phenomenon, and a lot of millionaires buy it just for fun.
You see 18-year-old people as well as 80-year-old people of different income levels, races and religions in the same line on December 31st in Brazil.
The gambling markets of Brazil are more targeted when it comes to Sports Betting, Poker and Casino games for iGaming operations. But beware that Brazilians love lotteries!
