Brazil’s AGU moves against 8 sports betting companies that failed to share customer balance data

Brazil’s Advocacia-Geral da União (AGU) is taking eight sports betting companies to court after they did not pass bank the data needed to return leftover player balances. The money at issue is still material: CNN Brasil says R$ 159 million remains to be refunded after the voluntary withdrawal window closed on 5 October.

1. The companies were supposed to send financial institutions the value owed to each bettor, identified by CPF (Cadastro de Pessoas Físicas), plus the bank account used for deposits. Without that information, banks cannot carry out the refunds scheduled for 9 to 14 October.
2. The action is meant to force the operators to provide the missing data so the banks can return the funds. In practice, this is the part of the cleanup process where compliance paperwork turns into actual money movement.
3. According to the federal government, the data already submitted by other companies covers 22.5 million bettors with remaining balances across 70.5 million accounts. Of that total, 90% of accounts have a balance below R$ 1.
4. If banks are unable to complete a refund for any reason, the funds will be transferred to Caixa Econômica Federal, which takes over the restitution process from 14 October. The timeline is split in two: 9 to 14 October for bank refunds, then from 14 October onward for amounts that could not be returned by the banks.
5. The same enforcement push also included blocking illegal betting sites. By Friday (9/10), authorities had sent 16,627 illegal betting sites for blocking, including 2,979 additional addresses identified on 8 and 9 October. They also requested removal of 3,691 pages, profiles, channels, groups, and servers across digital platforms, including 1,974 Facebook pages, 1,027 Telegram channels and groups, 560 Instagram profiles, 115 TikTok profiles, 14 WhatsApp groups, and one Discord server.