Brazil gives banks 24 hours to block suspicious betting accounts under new decree

Brazil’s Federal Government has set a 24-hour deadline for financial institutions to block accounts and stop transactions tied to unlicensed betting operators after notice from the Secretaria de Prêmios e Apostas (SPA). For banks, fintechs, and payment institutions, the World Cup adds volume exactly when the new rule adds urgency.

1. Under Decree No. 13.033, published on June 19, banks and other financial institutions must block funds linked to betting operators not authorized to operate in Brazil once they are notified by the SPA. The decree also covers stopping related transactions.
2. The deadline is tight: institutions have only 24 hours to carry out the block and interrupt new transactions. They must also notify the affected account holders immediately after the measure and later report compliance back to the SPA.
3. Failure to comply can trigger sanctions under the sector’s legislation. In practice, that means compliance teams, fraud-prevention units, and operations cannot treat this as a back-office cleanup job; the workflow has to run fast and leave an audit trail.
4. Rafaela Helbing, CEO of Data Rudder, said the short window requires “well-structured processes,” integration between compliance, fraud prevention, and operations, and tools that provide speed, traceability, and security throughout execution.
5. The World Cup is the first major stress test for the rule. The article says Brazilian users direct between R$ 20 billion and R$ 30 billion per month to sports betting platforms, while the tournament could move up to US$ 50 billion globally, with 10% of that in Brazil alone.

For high-risk PSPs, the takeaway is straightforward: Brazil is pairing a large betting flow with a very short enforcement SLA. If your onboarding, monitoring, and account-freeze processes still rely on manual escalation, this is the kind of regime that exposes the gap fast.