After the online betting market was legalized, and both onshore and offshore operators multiplied like mushrooms before regulation kicked off last year, the number of betting companies sponsoring Brazilian soccer clubs grew explosively.
Almost every team in the top Serie A league had betting-related logos on their shirts.
But as the 2025-2026 season began last August, only 12 of the 20 clubs had their main betting sponsors compared to 18 the previous year – a 33 percent drop.
So what’s going on?
One of the most notable absences is on the Santos jersey, the legendary São Paulo team, founded in 1912 and home of the great Pelé and, more recently, Neymar.
The club is still negotiating who will replace its previous main sponsor, 7k.
And the same is true for other leading Brazilian football teams: Grêmio, Internacional, Vasco, and Bahia.
Market Correction
According to experts the decline in betting sponsorships of football clubs is due to multiple factors.
The phase of saturation and aggressive spending has reached a turning point, influenced by regulation, tighter profit margins, increased contractual risks, and the search for more sustainable long-term revenue models.
André Gelfi, General Manager of Betsson Brazil, told iGamingFuture that the end of the boom is due to structural changes and that the increase in taxation and, worse, the risk of new taxes, along with all the new regulatory requirements, has brought about “a correction in the market”.
“Prices were very inflated due to the imminence of the regulations coming into effect, and the excitement of all the new players coming into the market. This is not the case any more,” he said.
“We have basically seen a correction, which is quite natural based on the fact that the risk is now higher and the economics are now worse.
“The combination of these two factors, together with the reality of the new numbers, is causing a price adjustment. Discussions are at another level now. So it is a correction, indeed,” said Gelfi.
Inflated
For his part, Amilton Noble, CEO of Hebara SA , who has been warning since last year about the excessive tax burden on the most vulnerable companies, indicated that all the teams that lost sponsorship–except Vasco, which had Betfair–were sponsored by medium-sized Brazilian operators, many of them relatively unknown.
“The Brazilian market is very inflated. The values are unrealistic because they were defined when the market was unregulated before 2025 and companies didn’t pay taxes in Brazil, but rather in the countries where they were licensed,” said Noble.
“The Brazilian tax level is much higher, and an increase was recorded in Brazil at the beginning of January.
“Many small and medium-sized businesses believed that sponsoring teams would be enough to boost their brands. This wasn’t enough to cover the high costs of sponsorships,” he added.
“Furthermore, the illegal market remains a significant player, reducing the revenue of regulated sites. This creates a systemic crisis for small operators who lack the liquidity to invest,” explained Noble.
Tightening Regulation
Initially, many operators invested aggressively to gain visibility and market share—paying very high sums for sponsorship rights—but now they face higher customer acquisition costs and tighter margins in the Brazilian market.
The phase of unlimited spending to build brand awareness is giving way to the need to make operations profitable.
Tightening regulation of sports betting in Brazil–including restrictions on how and where operators can run their advertising campaigns–also directly impacts the visibility and value of sponsorships in football and other high-profile events.
Moreover, recent policy initiatives to limit, or prohibit, betting advertising in public spaces and sports venues have also created uncertainty among operators and clubs.
Contractual Issues
There have also been specific instances where agreements have been strained or canceled due to financial or contractual issues.
For example, the sponsorship between Pixbet and Flamengo faced payment difficulties and ended prematurely, serving as a warning to other operators.
The close association between a soccer club and a sports betting platform also raised eyebrows about a possible conflict of interest.
With the heyday of betting companies now over, and the bubble now burst, several clubs are exploring alternative sponsors or renegotiating better terms, rather than automatically accepting offers from betting operators with increasingly less attractive rates.
This doesn’t mean that the big clubs have lost all their sponsorships.
But it does mean that some teams have ended their contracts with betting operators and have not yet renewed or replaced those agreements.
Others have decided to seek sponsors from other sectors or opt for more diversified advertising spaces.
Currently, leading club Flamengo, from Rio de Janeiro, still has a very important new betting sponsor, Betano.
But legal and regulatory uncertainty is making many other clubs more cautious with similar agreements; although Botafogo, the Copa Libertadores champions, and Flamengo’s bitter local rivals, has extended its main sponsorship with VBet, owner of Parimatch, for an estimated R$55 million per year (about £6.5m/US$8.9m).
