Legalized betting sites are being silenced in Brazil while the illegal market keeps growing

In Brazil, regulated betting operators had their websites and social channels blocked on Tuesday, while the country still has more than 30,000 illegal betting links active and accessible. For PSPs and acquiring teams, the message is blunt: enforcement is hitting licensed operators in public, but the gray and black market is still very much online.

1. According to the Associação Nacional de Jogos e Loterias (ANJL), the Federal Government blocked the websites and social media channels of betting companies regulated by the government itself in the early hours of Tuesday (06), and redirected operators’ sites to brasilsembets.gov.br. ANJL said the move targeted licensed companies that pay taxes and are supervised, while illegal sites continued to proliferate.
2. The association said it sent a letter on Monday (05) to the Secretaria Nacional de Direitos Digitais (Sedigi), the Secretaria Nacional de Segurança Pública (Senasp), and the Secretaria de Prêmios e Apostas (SPA), asking for the order to be reconsidered and for urgent clarification. ANJL said it received no response.
3. ANJL argues that Medida Provisória nº 1.394/2026 allows blocking or redirection of electronic addresses, but does not specify how redirection should be implemented or require the operators themselves to carry it out using their private technological infrastructure. The group also said the government took all betting companies’ social channels offline.
4. Among ANJL’s objections is the request for a legal basis to force companies to use their own domains, servers, systems, cloud services, DNS, and other technology assets to execute the measure. The association also raised cost allocation, implementation risk, personal data protection, and the compulsory redirection of private audience traffic to a Federal Government communication environment during an election period.
5. ANJL’s LegitBet system said it detected and confirmed 8,955 new suspicious websites on the day after the MP was signed, followed by 13,390 more the next day. From Friday (02) to Sunday (04), election day, the system identified another 206 new sites. Its technical team says Brazil now has 30,282 active and accessible illegal betting links.

The thing is, Brazil’s enforcement problem is not just about blocking URLs. Once a regulator starts pushing traffic away from licensed brands and toward state-controlled pages, compliance teams, customer support desks, and payment flows all feel it at once — while the illegal inventory keeps expanding in the background.