Indebted mothers gamble online in search of income, study finds

Among women who bet, those with children play around 1.6 times more than those without children, suggesting that, for these mothers, betting has less to do with leisure or adrenaline and more with trying to make ends meet for the month.

The data comes from the study "Mulheres & Bets", released by Clarice, a research studio on women and power, in partnership with the Instituto Estilo Latina and the Research Institute IDEIA. The survey combines 20 qualitative groups, with 60 women and men, and a national survey with 2,008 respondents, carried out in July.

The increase in betting among women is also reflected in the participants in Gamblers Anonymous meetings, an organization that welcomes people with gambling-related problems.

Between November 2024 and July this year, the period in which Folha participated in meetings, the growth in the number of women present was also noticeable.

On the most recent visit, they represented almost a third of the people in the room. There was everything from a pregnant woman who reported the difficulties of giving up online slot machines to a mother who only managed to give up the game about nine months ago, thinking about her son. The latter, today, is afraid to get close to her new girlfriend's family, because of their relationship with the game.

"The women who bet, the mothers who bet, don't bet to be Virginia, as people think", says Beatriz Della Costa, co-founder of Clarice and one of the study's spokespeople, in reference to the influencer known for her luxurious life and her million-dollar advertising contracts with bets.

"They bet to pay for the birthday cake, to go to a Japanese restaurant, to order a delivery, to buy school supplies. It's like their third income", he adds.

For the researcher, this is the key that explains why the bet has spread so widely among mothers: it promises a shortcut to a life that stops being just survival and becomes more dignified.

"It's also about care. The bets act in this place: 'I'm going to play to take better care of myself, my family.' But, in the end, that's not what happens."

In Della Costa's reading, the phenomenon of betting among women cannot be understood without looking at the moment when the platforms became popular in Brazil.

Online gambling was legalized in Brazil in 2018, gained traction during the Covid pandemic and captured more than R$10 billion from Brazilian families for the first time in 2021, according to consultancy H2 Gambling Capital.

This layer of women, the researcher considers, lost income, employment and stability at a time when online betting began to offer the promise of quick money. "Bets arrived a lot at this time, when the pandemic began, and offered this very easy place to quickly gain resources, as a supplement to income", he says.

Between 2019 and 2025, when the betting market ran without advertising or addiction prevention rules, marketing mainly occupied social networks, given traditional media's aversion to reputational risk. Still without government supervision, influencers advertised slot machines as a source of extra income, along with false "winning strategies".

At the end of the pandemic, Bianca Araújo, 38, from Santa Catarina, discovered online betting through her ex-husband and social media, a prevalent scenario, according to Clarice's report. The game led to Bianca losing her marriage, her savings and her home between 2021 and 2023.

"The size of the loss was more than R$500,000 in cash. I took out a loan both on my CNPJ and on my CPF. We had a truck, a Ford Ranger, and sold it for R$210,000. In one week, we spent R$150,000. It's really a disease, crazy", recalls Araújo.

Araújo says he started with winning sports predictions and assessed that he could have a source of income. She remembers that she spent the year 2021 between gains and losses, while maintaining, in parallel, a business selling courses.

In 2022, the beautician's account balance began to fall. "There came a time at the end of 2022 when my ex-husband and I decided to sell the furniture because I didn't even have the money to go back to the family home."

After a relapse in mid-2023, he decided to stop after running out of money for rent and has remained abstinent for three years. "I had many panic attacks, I felt pain in my body. My heart raced with worry", he recalls.

For psychiatrist Aderbal Vieira Júnior, responsible for the behavioral addiction treatment clinic at Proad (Guidance and Assistance Program for Dependents), at Unifesp, the growth in gambling among women accompanies a change in the female social role.

According to him, the game, historically more associated with men and the idea of being a provider, is now also sought after by women who face the pressure of obtaining money to support the house or meet their children's needs. "As women also enter into this profile of being the person who has to provide something, get some money, they will also pursue the game with this role", he states.

Vieira Júnior emphasizes, however, that it is necessary to differentiate the increase in the number of people who play from those who develop problematic behavior or dependence. “Use is growing, problematic use is also growing, but not all use is a problem,” he says.

For him, problem gamblers include both those who believe they will be able to make easy money and those who, faced with financial difficulties, bet as a sort of last alternative. Dependence, in turn, would reach an even smaller portion and involves loss of control, losses and progressive impoverishment.