The NFL has returned to São Paulo, Brazil, for a second straight season opener as it continues its ongoing globalization efforts. The seventh largest country in the world by population is hosting the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Chargers matchup on Friday night.
Unlike 2024’s Packers-Eagles game, when sports betting in Brazil hadn’t yet been fully regulated and offshore books thrived, this contest will take place in a new era for gambling in the South American nation that could assist the NFL’s ambitions there.
Brazil launched a fully regulated sports betting market in January, ending a period of uncertainty after sports betting was first legalized in 2018 and a proposed regulatory framework was passed in 2023.
While some Brazilian bettors still use offshore sites and accounts to wager on the NFL and other sports events, as they do in the U.S., clear regulation adds legitimacy to the industry there. The NFL hopes to benefit.
“More games in more markets, with fans having more ways to engage, with sports betting being one of them, is the recipe for successful international expansion,” Chris Grove, partner emeritus at Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, said in a phone interview. “And [Brazil’s] regulation of betting introduces it to a larger and more mainstream audience.”
Brazil, which has the league’s second largest NFL international fan base after Mexico, is poised to become one of the world’s largest regulated betting economies. It has the world’s third biggest market for sports betting behind the United States and the United Kingdom, according to a data analysis report by global analytics company Comscore.
The government says 17.7 million Brazilians wagered with licensed operators during the first semester of 2025. Most of those wagers are placed on soccer, which attracts millions of bettors daily. But the market performance bodes well for the NFL.
Genius Sports is the league’s exclusive distributor of real-time, official play-by-play and gambling data to sportsbooks and media companies around the world. The London-based firm, whose largest shareholder is the NFL, announced this week a new multifaceted partnership with major conglomerate Grupo Silvio Santos (Todos Querem Jogar) to supply its sports betting brands with official data.
It’s the latest chess move by Genius to offer fans a 24/7 sportsbook product in Brazil, which has 38 million NFL fans, according to the league.
“It’s a nice piece of the puzzle,” Bettor Capital founder Dave VanEgmond said in a phone interview. “It helps them retain fans, too, as NFL becomes more visible there and betting on (American) football broadens. It was already happening, but the [regulation] helps.”
The country’s government is still grappling with the new terrain as it tries to combat lingering illegal platforms.
Additionally, a clash over taxes has already erupted between legal operators and the Brazilian government, which is set to raise online betting taxes from 12% to 18% next month. Bloomberg reported earlier this year that operators’ fury toward the tax hike has created division in the government over the entire financial approach of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The NFL’s home country is going through its own sports betting taxation fights. Illinois taxes on sportsbook operators enacted this year have prompted state-licensed companies to charge customers betting fees and/or increase minimum bet amounts.
And gambling companies in Brazil face nothing like those in New York, where the NFL is headquartered. New York charges the joint-highest U.S. state tax rate at 51% of gross revenue for online operators, who have largely stuck around because of the size of the market.
