Brazil’s SPA plans to regulate bet design to curb impulse play, starting with supplier rules

Brazil’s Secretaria de Prêmios e Apostas (SPA) is preparing to move on the design features of betting platforms that push impulse betting, including accelerated spins and auto-repeat wagering. For PSPs and gaming suppliers, the catch is that the government says it first needs to regulate the commercial relationship between betting operators and foreign technology vendors.

1. The SPA’s next step in Brazil’s betting regulation is to restrict platform mechanics that encourage impulse betting. The specific targets mentioned are accelerated rounds and the automatic repeat-bet function, both of which remove any need for the user to take an action.
2. The information was published by the Coluna Guilherme Amado on AmadoMundo. According to the report, the federal government wants to intervene directly in game configuration, but that move depends on an earlier rulemaking step covering how betting houses work with foreign technology providers.
3. The reason is structural: betting platforms do not develop the games themselves. They rent systems from major global suppliers, so any change to game mechanics affects external vendors directly. In practice, that means the rules have to be written first at the level of business relationships between companies, before the game design layer can be touched.
4. The lack of rules on addictive design features has already been identified as a gap. A recent study by FGV Ibre described this gap as “structural” in Brazilian regulation, and specialists have criticized the fact that these tools remain unrestricted.
5. For now, the impulse-driving mechanisms are still allowed. The SPA, which oversees betting enforcement in Brazil, says it already has the sequence mapped out: regulate the relationships with the technology creators first, then move on to game configuration.