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Brazil’s Ministry of Finance is expanding its crackdown on illegal betting with automated website blocking, new measures to freeze operators’ assets and planned rules targeting financial flows linked to unauthorized gambling.
Carlos Renato Resende, undersecretary for Monitoring and Enforcement at the ministry’s Prize and Betting Department, told a Chamber of Deputies hearing Tuesday that more than 60 illegal betting websites have already been blocked. The process, which began manually in January of last year, has been automated since October.
The ministry is also preparing measures that would allow assets of illegal companies to be frozen and victims of fraud to seek reimbursement from blocked funds.
“When this money is blocked, the affected consumer can come forward and prove that part of this money is theirs, in order to be reimbursed,” Renato Resende explained. “At the end of the process, if the legal entity cannot prove the legal origin of the money, the funds will be forfeited to the Brazilian State and allocated to the National Public Security Fund, for the fight against crime in general.”
The Ministry of Finance is working with the National Financial System on additional regulations, with publication expected this month. The Anti-Faction and Organized Crime Law has also introduced mechanisms aimed at preventing illegal betting from being used for money laundering.
Some of the measures follow recommendations from the Brazilian Federal Court of Accounts, or TCU, under Ruling 1296/26, approved in May. Wesley Vaz, secretary of External Governance Control at the TCU, called for joint action by the Ministry of Finance, Central Bank, Federal Revenue Service, National Telecommunications Agency, or Anatel, and Federal Police.
“There is a need for the State to better block domain names, interrupt financial flows, and sanction illegal operators,” Vaz said.
The enforcement push comes as new research from the Locomotiva Institute estimates that illegal betting represents between 38% and 41% of Brazil’s market, down from 41% to 51% in the previous survey.
“This represents, in a simple estimate, an 11% drop in the illegal market. Good news: the illegal market seems to be declining. What is the worrying aspect? When we compare it to other jurisdictions, other countries, we still have a very large illegal market,” said Eric Brasil, director of LCA Consultoria.
The survey, conducted in May among 2,291 people nationwide and released Tuesday, showed Brazil continuing to trail several other markets in reducing illegal betting. Ireland has the lowest rate, at 3%. Brazil still lags behind other countries, such as Australia, with 15%, and Mexico, with 20%.
Deputy Julio Lopes (PP-RJ), coordinator of the Chamber’s External Committee on Acts of Piracy, said: “Although it’s still a small decrease, it’s something to celebrate. I think any progress in combating irregularities, smuggling, piracy, and tax evasion should be greatly celebrated.”
Resende cautioned that enforcement is unlikely to eliminate unauthorized activity entirely. “Nowhere in the world has an illegal market been eradicated,” he stated. “In Brazil, we have other markets subject to piracy, and the difficulty is the same.”
Fixed-odds betting has been authorized in Brazil since 2018 under Law 13.756/18, while the Betting Law adopted in 2023 introduced additional instruments for state control.