When Neymar learned this year he was getting the chance to play in one more World Cup, he had a message for fans.
In a video posted immediately after the Brazilian national team was announced in May, the country’s biggest soccer star, wearing diamond earrings and a big smile, looked into the camera, shared a promotional code for the Curaçao-based gambling platform Blaze and urged his more than 200 million Instagram followers to “have fun.”
In Brazil, online betting is everywhere. Gambling companies sponsor music festivals and soccer teams. They’ve flooded World Cup broadcasts. Since Latin America’s largest country legalized online gambling in 2018, it’s become one of the world’s fastest-growing and most lucrative markets, projected by San Francisco-based analysts Grand View to reach $9.2 billion by 2033.
