Brazil moves betting oversight under Casa Civil as SPA-MF joins new enforcement committee

Brazil’s Secretariat of Prizes and Betting (SPA-MF) is being folded into an interagency committee chaired by the Casa Civil, after a September 2024 provisional measure banned online sports betting operators, or “bets,” from operating in the country. For PSPs, banks, and ad platforms, the practical point is simple: the enforcement machine now has a single coordinating center for domain, payment, and advertising blocks.

1. The SPA-MF, part of the Ministry of Finance and created in 2024, will join the Interinstitutional Committee for Monitoring the Illegal Exploitation and Advertising of Fixed-Odds Betting, which is coordinated by the Casa Civil. According to Metrópoles, the secretariat has 100 professionals working on the implementation of the provisional measure signed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in September 2024.
2. The committee already includes representatives from the Secretariat of Communication, the Attorney General’s Office, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, the Ministry of Sport, the Central Bank, the Council for the Control of Financial Activities (CCAF), the Federal Police, Anatel, and the National Data Protection Authority (ANPD). In other words, this is not a niche gaming task force; it is an enforcement stack that reaches into payments, telecom, data protection, and law enforcement.
3. The Ministry of Finance said the committee is responsible for keeping a unified registry of domains, apps, and bank or payment accounts; defining protocols for blocking websites and apps; cutting off financial flows; removing advertising and sponsorship; standardizing notices to providers, banks, payment institutions, and ad platforms; and referring suspected administrative, tax, or criminal violations to the relevant authorities.
4. The government framed the ban as a public health measure aimed at discouraging harmful practices and reducing household debt. The market had been authorized in 2018 under Michel Temer, but regulation only started in December 2023. Until then, the sector operated legally without clear rules, which allowed access by minors and beneficiaries of social programs.
5. Under the SPA’s regulatory regime, platforms must verify user identity to block minors, prohibit betting by recipients of Bolsa Família, the Benefício de Prestação Continuada (BPC), and other social programs, offer voluntary self-exclusion, ban the use of credit cards so bets must be made with available balance, and impose advertising restrictions so ads cannot target children, promise easy gains, or present betting as an investment.

An Institute for Health Policy Studies (IEPS) estimate puts the annual health-related cost of gambling and betting harm at approximately R$ 30.6 billion, of which R$ 17 billion is associated with... the source excerpt cuts off there, but the number alone is enough to show why Brazil is treating payment blocking and ad enforcement as a state-level operation, not a housekeeping exercise.