At least 40 Ceará influencers keep promoting illegal betting sites after Brazil’s federal ban

At least 40 digital influencers from Ceará are still advertising betting platforms and virtual casinos that the federal government has banned. For PSPs and payment teams, the point is simple: when the law changes, the traffic does not always stop, and the compliance headache moves straight into advertising, affiliate, and onboarding controls.

1. The promotions continued after Provisional Measure (MP) No. 1,394, which took effect on Tuesday (25/9) and banned the operation, offering, intermediation, and advertising of fixed-odds betting in Brazil. G1 identified the accounts between October 10 and 13, after October 6, when bets stopped operating legally in the country.
2. The profiles were openly promoting the platforms through Instagram Stories on public accounts with thousands of followers, with no mention of the ban. Among those identified were Nayara Souza, Italo Wendel, known as Belo Belo, and Jéssica Santos, known as Jessica Macaxeira, each with more than 1 million followers on social media.
3. Some posts linked the influencers’ own images to the gambling platforms, using photos and videos alongside links to “tigrinhos,” “coelhinhos,” “tourinhos,” and other game mascots. In practice, this is classic affiliate-style distribution: the product may be banned, but the promotion package is still doing the work.
4. Under MP 1,394, the advertising itself is not treated as a crime, but it is considered abusive advertising under Brazil’s Consumer Protection Code and can trigger administrative sanctions. Lawyer Raquel Andrade said those sanctions can include fines, removal of the profile or ad, claims for damages, and retroactive tax collection, among other measures.
5. Brazil’s federal government has also sent a bill to Congress to criminalize both the operation and the advertising of betting. The proposed penalties cited in the text include 4 to 6 years’ imprisonment plus a fine for operating fixed-odds betting, and 2 to 4 years’ imprisonment plus a fine for advertising betting or recruiting bettors.

For high-risk operators and their processors, the useful detail here is not the social-media drama. It is that Brazil is tightening the line between licensed activity, promotion, and customer acquisition, which means affiliates, influencers, and traffic sources are now a direct compliance surface — not just a marketing channel.