Esportes Gaming Brasil says .bet.br is only the first check as Brazil warns bettors about cloned and fraudulent sites

Esportes Gaming Brasil used National Online Betting Day to spell out a simple point for anyone dealing with Brazil’s regulated betting market: a .bet.br domain is necessary, but it is not enough. For high-risk operators and PSPs, the practical issue is the same one that keeps showing up everywhere else — fraudsters copy the brand, the look and the payment flows, and consumers do not always spot the difference.

1. Since January 1, 2025, only companies authorised by Brazil’s Secretariat of Prizes and Betting (SPA) have been permitted to operate nationwide, and licensed websites use the .bet.br domain. Esportes Gaming Brasil said that this domain should be treated as the first filter, not the final answer on legitimacy.
2. The company warned that fraudulent websites can imitate the names, brand identities, advertising and social media profiles of legitimate operators in an attempt to deceive consumers. That means checking the URL alone will not catch cloned pages or copycat brands.
3. Carol Luna, Head of Compliance at Esportes Gaming Brasil Group, said consumers should assess “the entire experience”: who operates the brand, how identity is verified, where payments may come from, what control tools are available and how customer support can be accessed. In other words, the payment path matters as much as the domain.
4. Esportes Gaming Brasil’s seven checks are straightforward: verify the operator against the SPA’s official list; access platforms through verified channels rather than advertising or search results; confirm identity verification procedures; review available payment methods; check for financial and time limits plus self-exclusion tools; make sure support channels are clear; and watch for guaranteed-win promises or offers to recover previous losses.
5. The group also pointed to identity verification as a key divider between regulated and illegal betting environments. Licensed operators are required to verify bettors’ information and use authentication measures, including facial recognition with liveness detection. Luna said this helps prevent underage access, misuse of third-party identities, fraud and transactions that do not belong to the account holder.

For PSPs and acquiring teams, the useful detail is not just that Brazil has a regulated betting framework; it is that regulated platforms are expected to keep controls around identity, payment ownership, limits and self-exclusion throughout the player journey, not only at onboarding. Esportes Gaming Brasil said payments should be made between the operator and a bank or payment account held in the bettor’s own name — a reminder that in this market, the payment rails are part of the compliance story, not a side note.