Brazil’s Justice Ministry targets 348 Instagram profiles tied to illegal betting ads

Brazil’s Justice Ministry has asked for 348 Instagram accounts linked to illegal betting promotion to be taken down, saying the profiles together have more than 150 million followers. For PSPs and operators watching Brazil, the point is straightforward: the enforcement effort is not limited to gambling sites themselves, but now extends to the social media distribution layer that funnels traffic to them.

1. According to the ministry, the 348 accounts are all on Instagram. One of the accounts under review has 1.4 million followers, and the ministry says the group as a whole reaches more than 150 million followers.
2. The ministry says the move is part of a broader push to stop clandestine platforms from using influencers and social networks to reach new bettors. Justice Minister Wellington César Lima e Silva said, according to the ministry’s note: “It is not enough to take illegal betting sites offline if these platforms continue reaching the population through influencers and social networks. We are acting on this entire chain of promotion to prevent clandestine activities from continuing to exploit citizens and compromising family income.”
3. The monitoring is being carried out by the National Secretariat for Digital Rights (Sedigi) and the National Secretariat for Public Security (Senasp), through the Cyber Operations Laboratory (Ciberlab). The work covers sites, social networks, and messaging apps.
4. On the same Monday, the ministry also identified 2,207 Facebook pages with a combined audience of 7.5 million; 18 Telegram groups with about 182,000 participants; and 998 websites related to irregular betting.
5. The ministry says the monitoring launched on 25 September has already covered more than 60,000 sites, pages, profiles, groups, and servers linked to irregular betting promotion. Of that total, 51,611 are websites. The ministry also says it has identified 6,596 Facebook pages with 34 million members and followers, more than 900 Instagram profiles, 1,442 Telegram groups with 25.6 million participants, and 127 TikTok profiles with 469,000 followers.

The action follows Provisional Measure No. 1,394, published on 25 September, which banned fixed-odds betting in Brazil, along with online games and virtual casinos. The ministry had already said that removing betting content from social media was part of its enforcement strategy; this latest sweep shows how broad that strategy has become in practice.