It is spreading as a cancer. This month the central bank published a report saying that in August 20% of the Bolsa Família, the largest money transfer program for very poor Brazilians, was spent on these bets.
Out of the 20 million people that receive it, 5 million made bets during that month. This is 2 billion reais (about $450M) spent in a single month by the poorest Brazilians.
It's a cancer. Everywhere you go there are ads. The influencers, the biggest athletes and musicians are marketing it.
Although I tend to be liberal, this needs to be heavily regulated.
As a libertarian however, I break with the opinion of making consensual activities illegal even if they are self-harming. So I guess my stance is probably the same as addictive drugs. They could be legal, but come with the same labeling, warnings, ID requirements and age restrictions that come with a pack of cigarettes. We should probably be educating kids about the dangers of addictive apps like we once did with DARE on the dangers of drugs.
Warnings serve to ruin their image in the public eye, which makes opposing further control harder.
As for gambling, there's a simple solution. Ban all advertising of it. If people really need to gamble, they'll find it on their own.
This will dramatically shrink the problem overnight.