The largest country in South America and one of the largest poker countries in the world has big changes to their online gaming apparatus. To kick off 2025, after much anticipation, Brazil launched its regulated betting and online gambling market.
The lack of regulations has never been an obstacle to online gaming in Brazil before as it has always been very popular. In fact, Brazil has generated some of the most online gambling traffic in the entire world. Online poker is also a big business in the country, which can be seen by the number of online poker sites in Brazil.
In recent years, the lack of regulations forced many Brazilians to use foreign gambling platforms. Brazilian authorities identified that as a lost revenue stream and the new regulations are intended to create a lot more money for the Brazilian economy.
The New Regulations
The new regulations were launched on January 1, 2025 and immediately went into effect. There are many rules in the new regulations and many different sectors addressed. Among those, the most important ones are as follows:
- Foreign operators are now barred from offering services and all operators must be based in Brazil.
- Operators are liable to pay 12% revenue tax in addition to federal and state taxes.
- All authorized gambling operators must use the bet.br domain to be distinguished from unauthorized platforms.
- Credit cards are no longer a valid form of payment. Only debit cards or Pix (the Brazilian instant payment system ecosystem) will be accepted.
- Operators are mandated to meet a range of integrity, responsibility and honesty requirements as proposed by the ABRADIE and IBJR.
- Players are subject to a 15% tax on winnings, which is a significant reduction on the initially proposed 30% tax.
- A Brazilian gambling license will cost R$ 30 million (currently US$ 5 million) and last for five years.
- Companies that operate without a license face having their websites blocked and fines of up to R$2 billion (US$327 million).
- Operators must perform rigorous age and identity verification before registration to ensure players are over 18 and do not feature on any government restriction lists, PEPs and Sanctions.
- Operators are required to follow strict advertisement rules, including not advertising to those under 18 or using under 18 models in advertisements and promotional materials.
Impact of New Laws
The new regulations do provide some challenges and open up some questions as well, considering that Brazil has been operating fairly successfully without such restrictions for years. One of the concerns is online gamblers being more susceptible to scams or fraud and also could increase match-fixing in sports within the country.
Ultimately, the hope is that the new regulations create a large revenue stream for Brazil and still allow for millions of people to continue to partake in online gambling. With so much money on the line, it can be assumed that Brazil will do their utmost to ensure that safety is the very top concern. That way, Brazil can remain one of the most prominent online gambling countries in the world.
References
- https://www.idnow.io/blog/brazilian-gambling-license-structure