Brazil tightens crackdown on illegal betting sites, fintechs and influencers with new blocking powers

Lula has signed a decree and the Finance Ministry has issued a portaria that let Brazilian authorities move faster against illegal fixed-odds betting operations, including administrative freezes on funds held by financial institutions. For high-risk PSPs, the important bit is simple: the perimeter now explicitly reaches fintechs and influencers that move money for, or promote, unlicensed operators.

1. The federal government announced the measures on Friday (19) as part of a broader push against illegal bets in Brazil. The decree regulates the Lei Antifacção and allows the immediate administrative blocking of funds held in financial institutions that process payments for betting sites without authorization.
2. The Ministry of Finance also published a portaria that extends joint tax liability to fintechs and influencers that move resources or advertise for these platforms. In practice, that means the payment chain and the marketing chain are now both in the frame, not just the betting operator itself.
3. The blocking mechanism works in three steps. First, the Secretariat of Prizes and Bets at the Ministry of Finance issues an auto de constatação identifying the illegality and notifies the financial institutions directly, with the Central Bank informed. Those institutions then have 48 hours to confirm the blocking of all accounts that received funds from the identified illegal betting operations.
4. After that, the Ministry of Justice opens an administrative proceeding with due process so interested parties can contest the block. Once that phase is finished, the Attorney General’s Office files a court action for the definitive forfeiture of the funds. Money declared forfeited goes to the National Public Security Fund.
5. Officials used hard numbers to show the scale of the problem: 50,000 sites taken down, 350 operators identified, and 37 financial institutions at the center of the scheme. In one investigated case, the illegal network moved R$ 50 billion through a web of fintechs with little regulatory supervision.

According to official data cited at the briefing, illegal bets account for between 41% and 51% of the total platforms operating in the country when compared with authorized ones. For PSPs, that is less a headline number than a risk map: the market is large enough to attract volume, and the enforcement toolkit now explicitly targets the rails carrying that volume.