Court rejects lawsuit filed by compulsive gambler against Ana Gaming Brasil in Bahia.

The Special Civil Court of the District of Senhor do Bonfim (BA) dismissed the lawsuit filed by Edson Carlos Araújo Medrado against Ana Gaming Brasil SA, operator of the 7K, Vera.bet and Cassino.bet platforms. The gambler claimed that he suffered from gambling addiction and that the company had failed to control his compulsive behavior while using the services.

The decision, delivered by lay judge Jéssica Cavalcanti Barros Ribeiro and ratified by judge Tardelli Boaventura, precisely defines the scope of the responsibility of digital betting operators towards consumers who claim to suffer from gambling addiction.

What the gambler claimed

In the lawsuit filed under case number 0001355-69.2026.8.05.0244, the plaintiff requested the annulment of the bets placed, the return of the lost amounts, and compensation for moral damages. The central argument was that the operator had neglected to monitor his behavior, even in the face of a diagnosis of gambling addiction.

Ana Gaming Brasil SA was represented by lawyers Udo Seckelmann, Thiago Stüssi, and Beatriz Braz, from the law firm Bichara e Motta Advogados. The defense presented documentation demonstrating compliance with current regulatory standards.

The basis of the judgment

The judge identified three lines of reasoning that, taken together, ruled out the company's liability.

The first point concerns the inherent risk of the activity. The ruling pointed out that losses are part of the natural risk of sports betting, something that any participant is aware of when entering this type of activity. The plaintiff's own trajectory on the platform weakened the argument of continuous losses; on one of the platforms operated by the defendant, it was found that he made a profit.

The second aspect addressed the operator's regulatory compliance. Ana Gaming Brasil demonstrated full compliance with the rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Brazil (SPA/MF) and possessed the COMPULSAFE seal from the Brazilian Company for Support to Compulsive Gamblers (EBAC). Furthermore, it offered tools for self-limiting deposits, losses, and session control; resources that Medrado himself used when requesting self-exclusion on all platforms, a request processed automatically and immediately.

The third argument concerns knowledge of the user's health status. The judge highlighted that there is no evidence that the operator knew of the gambling addiction diagnosis at the time of the bets. The standard registration does not require, nor could it require, information about mental health, as this is sensitive data.

The consumer is solely to blame.

Based on this set of elements, the judge concluded that the gambler is a capable person and that, by voluntarily registering and making deposits even while aware of his medical condition, he alone assumed the risk of his choices.

The ruling applied Article 14, § 3, II, of the Consumer Protection Code, which provides for the exclusion of the supplier's liability when the loss results from the consumer's own exclusive fault. The decision therefore rejects the idea that the consumer's vulnerability automatically transfers responsibility to the platform, establishing that, without proof of vitiated consent, incapacity, or failure in the provision of the service, the losses from the bet remain the user's responsibility.

This precedent is relevant to the digital betting sector at a time of regulatory consolidation in Brazil; the question of the limits of operators' duty of care towards compulsive gamblers is still far from being settled in the country's courts.