Great place to live (Florianopolis, same would be true for Balneario Camboriu), even though I'm quite sure it's not for everyone.
Great beaches, great weather (even though during winter temperatures drop down to 5-15 degrees and there is a bunch of rain and windy days). Most beautiful women I've seen in my life, imo doesn't get better anywhere else in that department.
Lots of great parties/nightlife, even though parties can get pricey very quickly. Also if you're not into electronic music (or Sertanejo, kind of the Brazilian counterpart to country music) or looking for rock concerts, the nightlife options disappear quickly. Same is true if you were looking for opera, theater or arts/museums, not really much available in that department but Sao Paulo or Rio are roughly 1hr away by plane, so that's at least an option.
Online poker is legal, as is live poker and more and more live games popping up, rather low stakes but afaik at least in BC they have a 10R$/20R$ NLHE (roughly 2/4 US$) cashgame going at one of the places. Also lots of times PLO is offered and esp. during summer you even find 25/50 games going, level of play differs a lot from day to day. Some really good regs, but esp. during summer it gets fishy and games can get really wild.
Not 100% sure about sportsbetting to be honest (even though I probably should be...): But sites like sportingbet or bet365 advertise a lot and do so on national TV during UFC events, so it should be legal. Iirc on paper it's illegal but since the servers are located outside of Brazilian territory, it's accepted. Either way nobody cares and you can access all sites without any restrictions and other than bwin I haven't found a site yet that doesn't allow accounts registered to a Brazilian address.
Cost of living in both cities is rather high though: Cars cost roughly double what you're used to (thanks to import taxes), same is true for electronics and alcohol (unless it's a Brazilian cachaça) or pretty much anything that's imported. Since you would want to avoid the outer areas of both cities, rent or property prices are higher than most people expect.
Also expect lots of bureaucracy once you need to get some paperwork done, lots of traffic and during high season (=summer) horrific traffic, short power outages (ranging from 30sec to 3-4hrs) maybe 3-4times a year. On the other hand I always felt safe, even working back home in the middle of the night at 3,4 or 5am. Might be different in some other parts of the city but there is absolutely nothing that would really make you go there, unless you wanted to score some drugs.
You also get the standard stuff you are used to: lots of shopping malls, smaller shops, an abundance of bars & restaurants serving all tastes, in Floripa you could go out and watch Serie A (1st division) and Serie B (2nd division) soccer games if you wanted and since Florianopolis has an airport (Balneario Camboriu is 30min or a 90R$/45US$ cab ride away from Navegantes airport) you get connections to lots of places, 1hr to Guarulhos and from there you get direct connections to Europe or the US).
Only real downside is public transport: In BC that's not a big deal since you can pretty much walk anywhere and there are buses taking rounds up & down the two major avenues allday long. So for about 1$ you can hop on & off if you're not in the mood of walking down the beach. Taxis are rather cheap, too.
Floripa is different though: City is larger and more spaced out, so you def. want to own a car or motorcycle because otherwise taxis can get expensive after a while and public transport is somewhere in the middle between non-existent and being a joke.
So to summarize, imo in Floripa you get to live in a beautiful, rather secure place with some really great beaches, good food and the most beautiful women on the planet, while not having to deal with too much intrusion from the government into your private life, but at the end of the day your costs will probably be the same (or depending on your lifestyle might be even slightly higher than in the US).
