Brazil’s illegal betting market still accounts for 41% to 51% of online wagers, and industry leaders say payment controls are the fastest way to push players to licensed platforms

Brazil has had a regulated sports betting and online gaming market for a year and a half, but illegal operators still take a large share of activity. In this debate, five industry figures point to the same pressure point: payments, especially Pix, because that is where unlicensed platforms actually touch the financial system.

1. Recent studies supported by the Brazilian Institute for Responsible Gaming (IBJR) estimate that between 41 and 51 per cent of Brazil’s online betting market remains illegal, with billions of reais in wagers and tax revenue flowing outside the regulated channel. For licensed operators and their PSPs, that means the market problem is not just traffic or branding; it is settlement, account access and the ability of unlicensed sites to keep moving money.
2. Leonardo Baptista, CEO and co-founder at Pay4Fun, says the most effective short-term tool is to cut off access to the financial system. In his view, irregular operators in Brazil depend directly on Pix to function, and stricter supervision, account closures, disruption of financial flows and meaningful fines would make the business model of those platforms unviable.
3. Baptista also argues against simply increasing the tax burden on licensed operators. His position is that regulators should strengthen supervision and guarantee regulatory stability, because predictable rules plus credible enforcement against payment channels would push both players and operators toward the licensed environment, with more tax collection, jobs and sector maturity as the result.
4. Amilton Noble, CEO at Hebara, also focuses on payments, but adds an important caveat: enforcement alone will not move players if the legal offer is less attractive. He says the thing that really moves the player is convenience, and the illegal market still offers practical advantages that weigh on the decision.
5. Noble’s view is that “suffocating the illegal market through payment methods” is the right path, because making deposits and withdrawals harder quickly reduces the appeal of unlicensed sites. But he warns that this only works if the regulated environment avoids high friction, high costs or an inferior user experience; otherwise players will simply go around it.

The report sits in a familiar high-risk pattern: when a market is formally regulated but a large illegal share remains, the real battle often moves to payment rails, account monitoring and the economics of friction. In Brazil, Pix is the critical rail to watch.