Campinas judge drops Virginia Fonseca, Deolane Bezerra and Carlinhos Maia from compulsive gambling lawsuit

A judge in Campinas, Brazil, has removed Virginia Fonseca, Deolane Bezerra and Carlinhos Maia from a lawsuit brought by a bettor who says their social media posts led him into compulsive gambling. The same ruling also cleared two payment intermediaries from the case on procedural grounds, which is the part PSPs will care about: the judge said they had no direct contractual or legal relationship with the claimant.

1. Judge Bruno Gonçalves Mauro Terra of the 5th Civil Court of Campinas (SP) found the three influencers and two payment companies lacked legitimidade passiva — in plain English, they were not proper defendants in the case as filed. The ruling does not address the merits of the bettor’s claims or any civil liability.
2. On the payment side, the judge wrote that the intermediaries “did not maintain any direct contractual or obligational legal relationship with the claimant” and acted only as financial service providers. For high-risk PSPs, that wording matters more than the celebrity names attached to the case.
3. As for the influencers, the court said they published content on social media “without being part of the essence of the betting legal relationship at issue.” The initial complaint against them was dismissed without resolution of the merits, though the decision can still be appealed to the São Paulo Court of Justice (TJ-SP).
4. The case is not over. It continues against one other defendant named in the original filing, which was not identified in the published decision.
5. The same judge also denied the claimant’s request for free legal aid. He cited the bettor’s own statements about “capacity incompatible with the legal state of financial need,” including alleged deposits of R$ 50,915 between May and June 2023 and total losses above R$ 100 thousand. The claimant was ordered to pay court costs within 15 days, or the case can be removed from the docket under Article 290 of the Civil Procedure Code.

The practical takeaway for PSPs and payment intermediaries is straightforward: Brazilian courts may be willing to separate promotional actors from the payment layer when there is no direct legal relationship with the claimant. That does not end the broader dispute, but it does show where the procedural pressure points are.