Brazil court suspends Pixbet platforms over underage gambling safeguards

A judge in Paraíba has ordered the suspension of Pixbet’s betting platforms until the company implements facial biometrics to verify bettors’ ages and blocks CPF numbers belonging to minors. For high-risk operators and PSPs, the point is simple: age checks are no longer being treated as a front-end formality, but as a technical control that can be audited at source-code and server level.

1. The order was issued on Saturday night, 22/8, by Wolfram da Cunha Ramos, a judge at the Tribunal de Justiça da Paraíba (TJPB), in a public civil action aimed at protecting children and teenagers from online betting. The sites and apps were still operating until 1:30 a.m. on Sunday (23/8), according to the report.
2. The action was brought by Father Júlio Lancellotti, the Centro de Defesa dos Direitos Humanos (CDDH) Padre Ezequiel Ramin, and Educafro. Their lawyer, Marlon Reis, said minors can get around platform registration rules by using an adult’s CPF, which is why he argued that only biometrics “at all stages” works, including facial recognition at the time of betting and at every payout.
3. The suspension will remain in place until betting companies implement facial biometrics to verify bettors’ ages. The court said the biometric check must be paired with an automatic system that blocks CPFs of users under 18, including a life-proofing check on the user’s identity.
4. The technology will be subject to a judicial technical examination by a professional with training in information security. That expert will review source code, servers, authentication logs, and the operation of the biometrics and CPF filters. Restarting the platforms also depends on technical information provided by the Secretaria de Prêmios e Apostas of Brazil’s Ministry of Finance.
5. The civil action also seeks to freeze R$ 1 billion of Pixbet’s assets to secure compensation for affected families and collective moral damages. That request is still pending in first instance. Pixbet was already facing another freeze: R$ 1.1 billion was frozen after Operação Arena by the Polícia Federal, launched on 13 August 2026 against the company.

For operators in Brazil, this is a reminder that the compliance burden does not stop at KYC. If the court wants biometric verification, CPF blocking, log review, and a technical audit of the system itself, then the control stack has to survive judicial scrutiny, not just onboarding flows.