Brazil Finds 415 More Illegal Betting Domains After Ban
Brazil’s illegal betting-domain count rose from 295 to 710 between the evening of September 25 and September 27, according to Bet Legal monitoring. The increase was 415 domains, or 141%.
It started after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed Provisional Measure 1,394, which ends fixed-odds betting in Brazil. The licensed sites themselves have not closed yet.
Players have until October 5 to take out money already held in their accounts. Sites and apps are due to stop operating on October 6.
85 Federal Authorizations Are Ending
The September 25 measure covers sports betting and online casino games. It also reaches betting authorized by states and the Federal District.
New deposits and bets stopped on the day the measure was signed. New advertising campaigns were also barred. Existing physical betting advertising and sponsorship material has to be removed by October 5, according to the federal government.
Brazil had granted 85 federal betting authorizations. The authorization fee was R$30 million ($5.8 million at the September 25 exchange rate). Across 85 authorizations, that comes to R$2.55 billion ($490.5 million).
Those payments will not be returned under the MP. The text also rules out compensation for investments already made, lost profits or the expected continuation of the activity.
Brazil only put the current regulated federal market into operation in January 2025.
294 domains appeared in one day
Bet Legal had 295 unauthorized domains on its list at 18:00 on September 25. September 26 added 294.
Another 65 were recorded by 19:10 the next day. The total was then 710, according to the monitoring figures. That makes the September 26 batch almost as large as the entire list recorded on the evening the ban was announced.
There is another way to read the numbers. Of the 710 domains in the September 27 count, 415 (58.5%) were added after the September 25 reading. Most of that increase came on September 26: 294 domains, or about 71% of the post-announcement rise.
These are web addresses, not 710 betting companies. Operators can switch domains or run more than one at the same time. The figures also do not show how many players registered or placed bets.
Blocking work gets larger
Brazil was already blocking unlicensed betting sites before the ban. From January 1 through September 22, SPA had sent 57,691 addresses for restriction by Anatel, according to figures cited with the Bet Legal data.
Payment blocking is part of the enforcement as well. Procedures introduced this month require payment companies to act on financial flows connected with unauthorized betting.
MP 1,394 adds an inter-agency structure for the next stage. Domain restrictions, app removal and payments are all included. Administrative fines can reach R$2 billion ($384.7 million at the September 25 exchange rate).
The Legal-Illegal Split Ends After October 5
Until now, enforcement had one clear split: authorized operators on one side, illegal sites on the other. That distinction disappears after October 5.
The licensed sites were still online when Bet Legal’s count rose by another 415 unauthorized domains.