Brazil betting law: the federal system and the foreign-licensed one side by side

Who may run a betting site under the Brazil betting law

The conditions sit in Articles 4 to 12:

• Prior authorisation. Fixed-odds betting runs in a competitive environment, with an authorisation issued beforehand by the Ministry of Finance (Art. 4).
• Nature of the act. The authorisation is discretionary, has no minimum or maximum number of operators, is personal and cannot be sold or transferred, and may be granted for five years (Art. 5).
• A Brazilian company. Only companies formed under Brazilian law, with their seat and management in Brazil, are eligible (Art. 7). The regulation must cover, among other points, a director responsible for dealing with the Ministry, a customer service with an ombudsman, certified technical and cybersecurity systems, and a Brazilian partner holding at least 20 % of the capital.
• A grant fee. The fixed fee is capped at R$ 30,000,000 and covers three commercial brands per authorisation (Art. 12).
• A public list of applications. The applications filed must stay open to public consultation on the Ministry's website (Art. 10, §1).

The SPA page adds that a foreign group has to set up a Brazilian subsidiary, with a CNPJ, a seat in Brazil and statutory directors domiciled in the country.

The SPA, the start date and the .bet.br suffix

The Secretariat was created by Decree 11,907 of January 2024. Its page describes the job as regulating, authorising, monitoring and, where needed, supervising and sanctioning betting and lotteries at federal level.

The SPA page on fixed-odds betting states three facts plainly. Since 1 January 2025 only companies authorised by the SPA may operate nationally. Each authorisation allows up to three brands, and each brand may run its own betting site. All betting sites with a federal authorisation use the «.bet.br» extension.

The procedure itself is set by Ordinance SPA/MF No. 827 of 21 May 2024, which the Authorisation Undersecretariat's page lists together with Articles 4 to 13 of the law. The same page of answers notes that state lotteries may operate only inside their own territory; national reach belongs to operators authorised by the SPA. Which domain a licence certificate names is a separate question for the foreign side.

Identity, age and money on the federal side

The law writes the bettor's checks into statute rather than leaving them to a contract:

• Identity. The operator must use identification procedures that verify the bettor's identity, and facial recognition technology is required (Art. 23). The data must be obtained, checked and validated, if necessary against public and private databases, and identity is confirmed through the channels given at registration, such as e-mail, SMS or messaging apps.
• Age. A person under 18 may not bet, directly or through someone else (Art. 26, I). The same article bars the operator's owners and staff, officials with supervisory duties over the sector, people who can influence a sporting result, and people diagnosed with gambling disorder by a qualified mental-health professional. Bets placed against the article are void.
• Accounts. Prizes go only to bank or payment accounts held in the bettor's own name at institutions based in Brazil and authorised by the Central Bank (Art. 30). The SPA page adds that this registered account is the origin and destination of all funds.
• Promotions. The operator may not grant an advance, bonus or prior advantage for placing a bet (Art. 29, I).
• Consumer rights. Bettors keep every right of the Consumer Defence Code (Art. 27), and the operator must offer a free service channel (Art. 28).

The second system: a foreign licence and the operator's terms

The houses in this site's ranking sit outside that frame. They are companies registered abroad that hold a licence from Curaçao or Anjouan, or print no number at all, and they run on their own .com and .io addresses rather than on .bet.br.

For them, the governing papers are different in kind:

• a certificate entered by the issuing authority in its own register, naming a holder company;
• the domains that certificate lists;
• terms of service that decide when identity is checked, whether an amount triggers the check, and how long a customer has to send documents.

Where the federal law fixes identity checks for every operator, the foreign side leaves the moment and the threshold to each company's clauses. The states a licence number can show in a register are explained separately, and the ranked houses with their five marks sit on the front page. How identity clauses differ between houses is covered on the page about when documents are requested.

What this page leaves out

It gives no verdict on where anyone should bet and no advice on either system. It does not interpret the law beyond the words quoted, and every rule it cites was taken from the government pages on 16 September 2026. Questions about tax on winnings belong with an accountant.

The minimum age of 18 applies on both sides: in the statute for the federal system, and in the terms of every house this site lists. The method behind the ranking explains how the foreign papers are read.