Soccer-mad Brazilians have fallen hard for online sports betting, yielding a boom of interest from foreign gambling companies that may boost state coffers but also threatens to divert funds from consumer spending in other areas.

Latin America’s largest economy has seen lower-than-expected growth in consumer spending in the country in recent months, a weakness some banks and think tanks are blaming on gambling. Such a linkage would echo data seen in some U.S. states touched by online gambling fever.

Brazilian central bank governor-in-waiting Gabriel Galipolo has chimed in as well.

“Even major banks are discussing why the recent growth in income is not reflected in the growth of savings or consumption, and may be leaking into this type of activity, into gambling,” Galipolo said at a seminar last month, without elaborating.

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