Meta restricted 348 Instagram accounts in Brazil over betting ads, including influencers with more than 150 million followers combined

The accounts were restricted at the request of Brazil’s Ministry of Justice and Public Security after they kept promoting online betting and casino platforms following Provisional Measure 1.394/2026, which banned the operation, offering, and advertising of fixed-odds betting in the country. For PSPs and operators, the detail that matters is simple: enforcement is now hitting high-reach social accounts, and some of them have already reappeared on backup profiles.

1. On Wednesday the 11th, Meta started complying with a request made by Brazil’s Ministry of Justice and Public Security on Monday the 9th to restrict 348 accounts in Brazil. According to the ministry, those profiles continued to promote betting platforms and online casinos after the new legal ban came into force.
2. The government did not publish the full list. The names that have surfaced so far were identified by internet users and the press, with each profile checked individually. The monitoring work was carried out by the National Secretariat for Digital Rights and the National Secretariat for Public Security through the Cyber Operations Laboratory (Ciberlab).
3. The most visible case is Anderson Neiff, a singer from Recife with more than 12 million followers. On October 22, BNLData reported that he had promoted the clandestine Betaya platform a month after the ban. Marie Claire reported that his account is among those taken down.
4. Another national-profile name is Paulo Augusto Carvalhaes, the former BBB 26 contestant, who was expelled from the reality show in January and has 746,000 followers. When users try to open his account, Instagram shows a notice saying the platform is “acatando um pedido legal do(a) Ciberlab” (“complying with a legal request from Ciberlab”). Reporting said he had promoted a sportsbook in Stories. His team had not commented by the time the piece was published.
5. The list of affected public figures also includes Italo Wendel (Belo Belo) from Ceará, with 1.8 million followers; Malévola Alves, with about 1.5 million followers on her main profile; Nayara Souza from Ceará, with 1.4 million followers; Merianne Silva, known as “Diva do CRAS,” from Sergipe, with 1.2 million followers; Jéssica Santos (Jessica Macaxeira) from Ceará, with 1.2 million followers; and Cris ZL, Léo Neiff, and Sagatt, whom Metrópoles said also show the restriction notice.

Nayara, Belo Belo, and Jessica Macaxeira had already appeared in a g1 report in October that identified at least 40 influencers from Ceará posting links to betting and virtual casino platforms in Stories even after the MP. That matters because this is not just about one headline account getting locked; it is about a broader enforcement pattern against traffic sources that drive acquisition for high-risk operators.

Among the reactions, Merianne Silva said on a backup account that she lost her main profile as soon as she woke up. She called the measure fair as long as it applies to everyone who kept promoting the activity, and told colleagues that anyone who does not want to lose an account should stop advertising games of chance. Malévola Alves took a more defiant tone on X.