IBJR faces internal dissatisfaction due to the passive stance of Carlos Lima's management

São Paulo The largest association of companies in the betting market in Brazil, the IBJR (Brazilian Institute of Responsible Gaming) experiences a climate of dissatisfaction among its members. The reason would be the considered passive stance of the current management of Carlos Lima, the executive who assumed the presidency in June, five people linked to the sector told Folha.

President Lula (PT) has promised tough measures against the sector, which could be announced this week. As Folha showed, assistants to the head of government see the tightening of rules for these companies as imminent, including the veto of online casinos, which became famous under the nickname "tigrinho game".

This adds to other recent turbulent moments in betting, such as those experienced during the World Cup, with the image crisis due to advertising on broadcasts. As a result, there were changes in advertising rules, and advertisements began to receive warnings such as "Ministry of Finance warns: betting can cause addiction".

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Folha found that some representatives even staged a stampede and met with Plínio Lemos Jorge, president of ANJL (National Association of Games and Lotteries), another entity in the sector, to evaluate a change.

The IBJR said it was "unaware of any initiative to create a new entity and does not comment on isolated opinions." The entity claims to continue working to strengthen sector regulation.

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When contacted, Lima did not respond.

Founded in 2023, IBJR is made up of companies such as Bet365, Betano, Betsson, Flutter (Betfair and BetNacional) and SportingBet. ANJL represents Ana Gaming (owner of the 7K and Cassino brands), Stellar Gaming (EstrelaBet) —which is a dissident from IBJR— and Superbet.

The fact that most of these companies already operate jointly in other markets minimizes, in the opinion of people involved in the negotiations, the possibility of creating a competing entity.

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In the opinion of members of the entity, Lima adopts a more conciliatory stance, and Lemos Jorge, in turn, is more active in relation to the interests of the betting industry. The impression, said a bet representative, is that the IBJR has always been behind in the search for information.

The fact that the current president of IBJR comes from other markets also weighs against Lima. Lima was executive director of Ibrac (Brazilian Cachaça Institute) and advisor to IRelGov (Institute of Government Relations).

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Lima's appointment came to respond to requests for independent leadership. The complaints are that the executive does not have the right profile to represent the group's interests at this time.

Before Lima's arrival, the entity was temporarily led by André Gelfi, representative of Betsson in Brazil, who has advised the current president and is the one trying to contain the risks of dissent among the other members of the bloc. The predecessor in the position was Fernando Vieira, who left IBJR in September 2025 to join Keeta.