Brazilian senator Cleitinho Azevedo apologizes for asking Virginia Fonseca for a photo during the Bets CPI as MPDFT seeks at least R$ 120 million from Blaze and the influencer

Brazilian Senator Cleitinho Azevedo (Republicanos-MG) has publicly called his request for a photo with influencer Virginia Fonseca during the Bets CPI a mistake, saying he “was an idiot.” The apology lands while the Distrito Federal and Territories Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPDFT) has filed a civil public action against Fonseca and Blaze, asking for at least R$ 120 million in collective moral damages.

1. The apology came during a Senate session on Thursday, 10/7, after Azevedo revisited the May 2025 episode in which he interrupted his own remarks during Virginia Fonseca’s testimony at the CPI das Bets to ask her to record a video for his wife and daughter. The moment drew criticism because it happened in the very inquiry investigating online betting promotion.
2. Azevedo said he brought the matter up again after meeting a man who told him he had developed a betting addiction and had nearly lost his life and family because of games. The senator said that man told him the photo request had been one of the things that upset him most about the CPI appearance.
3. He also said that, after the backlash in 2025, he sent Virginia Fonseca an audio message asking her to stop advertising betting platforms. In the same speech, he argued for tighter measures on the sector and blamed the Brazilian Congress for regulating sports betting in the first place.
4. The senator described the impact of betting as a problem that should not be treated as an ideological fight, saying: “Brazil has become the country of bets. All parliamentarians have to take a position to end this.” He also cited data on betting growth during the Club World Cup and numbers tied to the impact of gambling addiction on mental health and SUS spending, though the source text does not give the figures.
5. On the legal side, the MPDFT described the partnership between Virginia Fonseca and Blaze as a “predatory collusion” in the action filed this week, and said the influencer is one of the platform’s main promotional arms. In the same May 2025 hearing where he asked for the photo, Azevedo had said Virginia was not “criminal” or a “bandit” and criticized the political class.

For high-risk operators, the useful bit is not the theater around the hearing. It is that Brazilian authorities are still willing to frame betting promotion as a collective-damage issue, and that the MPDFT is testing a civil route with a very specific monetary ask: at least R$ 120 million. That is the kind of number and theory of liability PSPs, affiliates, and brands watch closely when they decide how exposed they want to be in Brazil.