Brazil Tightens Online Betting Controls as BetConstruct’s Fábio Tiberia Puts Physical Gaming Back on the Table

At the BiS SiGMA João Pessoa event on 16 and 17 September, BetConstruct’s Vice President LATAM Fábio Tiberia used the “Sports Bar e a Economia da Experiência Esportiva” panel to make a straightforward point: if Brazil keeps tightening online betting controls, the market will not simply vanish — some of it may move elsewhere. For PSPs and operators, the interesting part is not the slogan, but the payment and compliance fallout if demand shifts from digital channels to physical ones.

1. Tiberia joined a panel alongside Lucinéia Souza, Legal and Compliance Director at Bethanus, and Joberto Porto, Chief Legal Officer at CDA Gaming. His participation as BetConstruct’s vice president was recorded in the official program and specialist coverage of the event.
2. Brazil is steadily expanding its controls over online betting. Bolsa Família, BPC, and more recently participants in debt renegotiation programs and Fies have been added to the prohibition bases used by SIGAP. According to the Ministry of Finance, around 10% of the approximately 40 million active users registered in the system were, in August 2026, classified in some category of prohibition, including self-exclusion.
3. Tiberia’s point was historical as much as operational: Brazil is not the first market to move toward tighter restrictions. Italy, for example, introduced a broad ban on gambling and betting advertising in 2018 through the so-called Decreto Dignità. His line about treating an advertising ban as a brand-new solution in 2026 was less about wit and more about market memory.
4. The bigger issue, in his view, is that demand does not disappear just because one channel is squeezed. He compared the market to a river: block its natural course and the water finds another exit. In practical terms, tighter digital restrictions do not automatically eliminate betting demand; they can shift it into other channels, including physical gaming.
5. Italy was also used as the reference point for the physical side of the market. In 2024, the legal market generated approximately €157 billion, with online accounting for about 58.5% of betting volume. Even so, AWP, VLT and other land-based formats still retained material economic weight. The catch for payment teams is that the channel shift does not remove risk — it changes it, bringing in in-person KYC, cash usage, source-of-funds checks, payment handling and transaction traceability.

The payment angle here is plain enough: when regulators tighten digital access, operators and PSPs need to think in systems, not silos. Channel migration can create a new mix of onboarding friction, cash exposure, and traceability requirements, and that changes the operational profile as much as the commercial one.