Blocked betting sites: who's monitoring what's still online?
Taking down thousands of illegal betting websites represents an important step in regulating the Brazilian betting market. But it also exposes an issue that goes far beyond law enforcement: how to structure a regulatory infrastructure capable of identifying and combating the illegal market in the face of this prohibition?
Since the approval of Law No. 13.756/2018, which established fixed-odds betting in Brazil, the country has been building a regulatory framework for the sector. The rules were expanded in subsequent years with the aim of establishing authorization criteria. From 2025 onwards, the market will operate under a more structured federal authorization regime. The challenge, therefore, does not end with the legal prohibition. It begins, in large part, with the ability to identify and stop operations that remain outside the rules.
Prior to the ban, oversight was carried out by the federal government, which comprehensively monitored bets, financial transactions, and the volume of operations through data provided by the institutions. Now, the challenge is to keep up with a market that already existed illegally even before regulation.
“With the freeze, the challenge will be to identify operations that may continue to operate outside the scope of oversight. To do this, it will be necessary to track how they reach the public and through which channels they receive money,” says Sílvia Piva, lawyer and researcher at IEA USP.
The problem is more profound precisely because it's a digital environment, according to Piva. There is no governance structure for this segment. Brazil can prohibit online betting; however, its oversight depends on other companies or institutions that may even be located outside the country. According to Sílvia, the Provisional Measure establishes responsibilities in Brazil, but its execution depends on cooperation between these agents and the ability to reach different parts of the business.
Since the ban came into effect, the federal government has requested the blocking of 13.241 illegal betting websites. This volume reinforces the need for the joint measures foreseen in the Provisional Measure to be effective in combating the illegal market.
Blocking does not guarantee digital exclusion on these platforms, since technology helps digital platforms create new websites, addresses, and domains, enabling new access by users. On the other hand, this same technology can assist the State in identifying suspicious online activities.
"Controlling access in the country does not mean eliminating internet activity," the expert asserts.
Sílvia Piva is a researcher, lawyer, professor, and executive working at the intersection of artificial intelligence, technology, law, and futures studies. A partner and COO at GHBP Advogados and founder of Nau d'Dês, she holds a postdoctoral degree in Technologies of Intelligence and Digital Design (TIDD) from PUC-SP and is a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies at USP (IEA-USP), where her research focuses on responsible AI, governance of AI agents, human-technology relations, and the military use of artificial intelligence. She is also a professor of Law and Technology in the LLM programs at IBMEC.
