MMABet Fined R$ 850,000 in Ceará for Letting Self-Excluded Gambler Deposit and Bet

Brazil’s Procon Ceará has fined Select Operations Ltd., which operates MMABET, R$ 850,000 after finding that the platform let a 28-year-old consumer who had enrolled in the country’s self-exclusion system open a new account and place bets anyway. For high-risk operators, the point is simple: if the CPF-based block exists on paper but not in the product, the regulator will treat that as a security failure, not a customer choice.

1. The consumer had requested exclusion from authorized betting platforms for 3 months on March 28, 2026, citing compulsive gambling. The self-exclusion tool had been launched by Brazil’s Ministry of Finance in December 2025, and allows consumers to register their CPF on the gov.br portal for periods of one, three, six, or 12 months, or indefinitely.
2. Despite that block, she was able to register again and return to betting on April 8, about 10 days after enrolling in self-exclusion. Between April 8 and April 10, she deposited R$ 1,077 on the platform.
3. In June, she filed a complaint with Procon Ceará and asked for the deposited funds back. A conciliation hearing was scheduled between the consumer and the company, but no agreement was reached, according to Procon.
4. After reviewing the case, Procon Ceará concluded that Select Operations Ltd. failed to prevent the registration and new deposits by a consumer whose CPF was self-excluded from betting. In its administrative defense, the company said there was no service failure and that the deposits and bets were made “free, conscious and voluntary,” but it did not explain how a blocked CPF was used on the site.
5. Procon Ceará said the core issue was not the consumer’s decision to deposit, but the company’s system failure to stop access to the platform, which could affect other people with gambling addiction problems. Bárbara Xavier, superintendent of Procon Ceará, said betting companies have been moving the economy and the market, but also creating negative effects for people who become addicted and put their financial lives at risk. Procon said the fine was based on the possibility of other consumers being harmed at scale.

For PSPs and acquirers, this is the uncomfortable part of Brazil’s self-exclusion regime: once a regulator says the mechanism is meant to protect vulnerable consumers, “voluntary” deposits stop being much of a defense if the platform failed to block the CPF in the first place. Procon Ceará said the MMABet failure violated Brazil’s Consumer Defense Code, especially the duty of safety in service provision.