🇧🇷Brazil gambling regulation

Legal framework at a glance

Brazil authorised fixed-odds betting in principle in 2018 (Law 13,756) but left it unregulated for five years, during which offshore operators built a huge market. Law 14,790 of December 2023 finally created a licensing framework covering fixed-odds sports betting and “online games”, which in practice means casino-style games with random outcomes. A series of ordinances from the Ministry of Finance in 2024 set the details, and the regulated market opened on 1 January 2025. Unlicensed operators have since been blocked.

Lotteries are run by the federal Caixa and, following a 2020 Supreme Federal Court decision, by states as well. Land-based casinos remain illegal; a bill to legalise them has been debated in Congress for years.

The regulator

The Secretariat of Prizes and Bets (Secretaria de Prêmios e Apostas, SPA), part of the Ministry of Finance, authorises operators, issues rules and supervises compliance. The Central Bank, the financial intelligence unit (COAF) and the telecoms regulator Anatel assist with payments oversight, anti-money laundering and site blocking. States may also license betting for players within their territory.

Licensing

Federal authorisation costs a fixed fee of BRL 30 million, lasts five years and allows up to three brands. Applicants must have a Brazilian-incorporated company, local management, minimum capital, certified systems and a Brazilian bank account. Domains must use the “.bet.br” suffix. Games must be certified by approved laboratories. See how to obtain a gambling licence.

Online products — what is and isn’t legal

Product	Status
Fixed-odds sports betting	Licensed
Online casino games (slots, table games, live casino)	Licensed
Peer-to-peer poker	Not clearly covered by the framework
Lotteries	Caixa and state lotteries
Land-based casinos	Prohibited

Taxation

Operators originally paid 12% of gross gaming revenue. Complementary Law 224/2025, published in December 2025, raises this to 13% in 2026, 14% in 2027 and 15% from 2028, with the extra share going to social security. Operators also pay corporate taxes. Players pay income tax on net annual winnings above an exemption threshold. Proposals for steeper rises have circulated and may return. See gambling taxation compared.

Advertising and marketing rules

SPA rules require ads to carry responsible gambling warnings and age restrictions, and prohibit:

• targeting or using imagery that appeals to children and adolescents;
• presenting betting as a source of income, a solution to financial problems or a route to social success;
• misleading claims about the chance of winning.

Self-regulatory bodies such as CONAR also issue rules for betting ads, and Congress continues to debate tighter restrictions, including limits on influencers and broadcast hours. See gambling advertising rules.

Player-protection requirements

Operators must verify identity and age using the player’s CPF taxpayer number, accept deposits only from accounts in the player’s own name and refuse credit cards and crypto. They must offer deposit, loss and time limits, monitor for harmful play and integrate with the centralised self-exclusion platform. Recipients of the Bolsa Família social benefit were barred from betting after concerns about benefit money flowing to bets. See self-exclusion in Brazil.

Enforcement against unlicensed operators

The SPA maintains a list of authorised operators and orders Anatel to block unlicensed domains; well over 25,000 illegal sites were reported blocked in the first year of the regulated market. Payment institutions are barred from processing transactions for unauthorised operators. Despite this, a sizeable illegal market persists. See spotting unlicensed and black-market operators.

What this means for players

Before depositing, Brazilians should check that a site uses a “.bet.br” address and appears on the SPA’s list of authorised operators. Only authorised operators are bound by the rules on identity checks, segregated payments, advertising and self-exclusion, and only they can be reported to the SPA if something goes wrong. Payments must come from an account in your own name, so requests to pay via third parties, credit cards or cryptocurrency are a warning sign of an illegal site.

The scale of the market has made gambling harm a public-health issue. Health and consumer bodies have raised concerns about household debt linked to betting, and the Ministry of Health has been asked to expand treatment capacity in the SUS. Anyone worried about their betting can combine the national self-exclusion platform with deposit limits, bank-level controls and support from a CAPS. See setting deposit, loss and time limits and bank gambling blocks.

Key numbers

Item	Detail
Authorisation fee	BRL 30 million
Authorisation term	Five years
Brands per authorisation	Up to three
Minimum age	18
Self-exclusion periods	1, 3, 6 or 12 months, or indefinite

Recent developments and what to watch

• Tax increases under Complementary Law 224/2025 apply in stages from 2026 to 2028.
• Self-exclusion: the centralised platform launched in December 2025 drew over 217,000 registrations within weeks.
• Advertising: Congress continues to consider bills to restrict celebrity endorsements and broadcast advertising.
• Land-based casinos: legalisation remains under debate in the Senate.

For support services, see the Brazil help directory. This page is general information, not legal advice.