Brazilian authorities announced on Friday the closure of over 2,000 betting sites, including those sponsoring prominent football team Corinthians and other top-tier clubs, as part of a move to regulate online gambling. Finance Minister Fernando Haddad described the situation as a betting “pandemic,” prompting the government to take stricter measures in the sector.
Since the legalization of sports betting in Brazil in 2018, online gambling has operated without regulations, facing minimal oversight or taxation. While many popular sites allow bets on sports events, Brazilians have also become enamored with gambling games like Aviator, where players wager on the flight of a virtual airplane, and the online casino game Fortune Tiger.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s administration is cracking down on sites that have not registered under the new regulations set to take effect in January. The new rules aim to combat fraud, prevent money laundering, and protect users by banning minors from participating in gambling activities.
“Anyone who is not regularized, or in the process of being regularized, is being taken off the air,” Haddad stated. The finance ministry identified 2,040 “suspicious domains” and has requested the telecoms regulatory agency Anatel to block them.
Among those on the blacklist is Esportes da Sorte, a sponsor of Corinthians, one of Brazil’s most popular football clubs, as well as other clubs like Athletico Paranaense, Bahia, and Gremio de Porto Alegre. The ministry stated that these betting sites would be prohibited from advertising, which includes sponsorship of football clubs.
However, more than 200 other sites that agreed to the new regulations will be allowed to continue operating. Brazil’s central bank estimates that approximately 24 million of the country’s 212 million residents, or roughly one in nine people, gamble online.
