Key points
- ANJL’s LegitBet system logged 41,716 suspicious websites as of 8 October, with 30,593 confirmed as matching monitored characteristics.
- Suspicious links averaged 549 a day from 1 to 7 October, about seven times the September level.
- Telegram channels produced 13% of detections on 8 October, and 90% of the websites found there were confirmed as suspicious.
- Two senior government officials told O Globo that money spent on betting would move to other uses.
The National Association of Games and Lotteries (ANJL) has shared a report from its LegitBet monitoring system that recorded 41,716 suspicious gambling websites as of 8 October, 13 days after the Brazil betting ban took effect. Of those, 30,593 were confirmed as matching monitored characteristics.
Brazil betting ban and the LegitBet count
The report, dated 9 October, covers detections up to 8 October. LegitBet identified 79 additional suspicious websites on 8 October alone and confirmed 55 of them. Daily detections between 2 and 7 October ranged from 70 to 233 new domains.
The report separates suspicious activity from legally established violations. Individual websites are not automatically classified as illegal, and their legal status is for the relevant authorities to assess. Since 5 October the figures cover only websites targeting Brazilian users. Domains already on the blocking list of the telecommunications regulator Anatel and websites run by authorised companies are excluded, so the totals may not capture the full scale of unauthorised activity.
Circulation of suspicious links grew faster than the website count. Monitored channels distributed an average of 77 such links a day between 8 and 23 September. After the provisional measure banning betting, which President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed on 25 September, the average was 549 links a day from 1 to 7 October, about seven times the earlier level.
Circulation reached 948 links on 7 October, one day after authorised operators took their websites and applications offline, and fell to 733 on 8 October. EpicWins reported on 30 September that 428 illegal sites appeared in three days after the ban.
How the sites were found
Search engines accounted for 32% of website detections on 8 October, according to the report. Existing databases contributed 30%, networks of previously monitored websites 18% and Telegram channels 13%. Social media platforms, including Kwai, Instagram, Reddit and Snapchat, accounted for 8%. Of the websites identified through Telegram, 90% were confirmed as suspicious.
The 55 domains confirmed on 8 October shared recurring traits. Of them, 82% had numbers in their names, including one group of 13 addresses with the same name and different numerical combinations. The .com extension covered 43.6%, followed by .vip at 12.7% and .bet at 7.3%. Other extensions included .org, .cc, .co, .net and .top.
The websites advertised “Fortune games”, payments through Brazil’s PIX instant payment system, registration with a mobile phone number only, daily bonuses and referral incentives. One offered rewards of up to 1 million Brazilian reais.
What officials say about the money
Guilherme Mello, executive secretary of the Ministry of Planning, questioned in an interview with O Globo on 14 October whether ending betting would necessarily reduce economic activity. He suggested that consumers could redirect their spending elsewhere.
“It’s a change of hands of money.”
Guilherme Mello, executive secretary of the Ministry of Planning, interview with O Globo, 14 October (translated from Portuguese)
Federal Revenue Secretary Robinson Barreirinhas took a similar position in an interview with the newspaper on 8 October.
PlÃnio Lemos Jorge, president of ANJL, argued that the measure moved bettors from more than 180 licensed sites to more than 30,000 clandestine ones, Correio Braziliense reported.
Next steps
Federal betting authorisations end on 25 October, 30 days after the measure’s publication, as covered in the Brazil betting ban licence deadline. The National Congress tracking page sets the deliberation window on the measure to 23 November, with urgency rules from 9 November. Lawmakers have filed 97 amendments to the ban.
