Another move towards developing a framework to fight illegal betting has been made in Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies. The Finance and Taxation Committee approved the report on Bill No. 4,044/2025, first introduced in August 2025 by deputies Paulo Litro, Raimundo Santos, and Merlong Solano.
Finance Committee Clears the Next Step
The bill has yet to be completed. It needs to pass the Constitution, Justice, and Citizenship Committee before a plenary vote in the Chamber. Afterward, if passed, the bill may then go to the Senate.
Brazil is expanding the fight beyond website blocking. The bill also targets payment flows linked to unlicensed operators.
Pix Becomes a Core Enforcement Tool
The main market effect lies in the transaction regulations. The bill would require financial institutions and payment firms to implement stricter control over transactions that are related to unlicensed betting operations.
Of particular interest is Pix. The Central Bank would have to regulate controls inside the Pix payment system. The bill text mentions the creation of the following:
- A dedicated betting transaction category linked to a positive registry of authorized operators;
- Automated filters based on CNAE and Pix keys;
- Integration with risk and self-exclusion directories;
- Visual identifiers in transaction statements.
The bill also seeks to restrict banks and other financial entities from supporting illegal betting sites, including Banking-as-a-Service, payment gateways, sub-acquiring and transaction accounts used to facilitate unauthorized betting activity.
For the legal operators, it could strip away some of the unfair advantage held by offshore or unlicensed sites. As for payment processors, this measure could result in heavier compliance duties in the industry where convenience and speed of transactions matter to users.
Banks Could Face Penalties
This proposal puts pressure on financial institutions that fail to meet their duties on betting-related payment operations. Sanctions include:
- Fines;
- A temporary ban on offering payment accounts or financial instruments to betting operators;
- Limits on certain payment methods under Central Bank supervision.
The bill also gives the Ministry of Finance the responsibility to maintain a public reference database for unlicensed betting providers. Payment service providers and banks can rely on the database to help filter out suspicious patterns of transactions.
Anatel, the Brazilian regulator responsible for telecommunications, would remain included in the enforcement chain. The bill text refers to measures like DNS blocking, IP blocking, SNI filtering, and mirror-site detection.
Criminal Penalties Broaden the Risk
The draft seeks to create new criminal penalties for operating or facilitating unauthorized fixed-odds betting services. Illegal operation and payment facilitation would carry prison terms of two to six years. Illegal advertising would carry one to four years.
Advertising also receives attention. In particular, the bill mentions penalties for promoting illegal betting activity, including through digital channels.
Expert Takeaway
Brazil is trying to make illegal betting harder to run at the infrastructure level. Site blocking alone rarely closes the gap. Payment controls, bank reporting, and stronger penalties may have a sharper effect, but only if legal betting remains simple enough for users to choose the regulated route.
