IBIA warns Brazil ban could weaken sports betting integrity monitoring

The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) said in a report published in October that Brazil's Provisional Measure 1.394/2026 removes the national layer of monitoring for suspected match manipulation. According to the association, no operator is now required to report suspicious betting to the Brazilian authorities, and police and the courts lose access to the account data that supported investigations. The measure was published on 25 September, federal licences expire on 25 October, and Congress has 120 days to approve or reject it.

The IBIA reported 25 alerts in the Brazilian sports market in 2025, the first year of the regulated market, against seven in 2024. Between 2021 and 2024, with no regulated market, the association recorded an average of 11 alerts a year in Brazil. From 2021 to 2025 it reported 68 alerts across eight sports, with football accounting for 51, followed by basketball and tennis with six each, and one case each in futsal, American pool, table tennis, volleyball and beach volleyball. In 2025, football accounted for 19 of the 25 alerts and basketball for five. The report states that an alert indicates suspicion rather than proven fraud, and that the rise reflects greater detection capacity.

The IBIA said the measure produces three losses for sports integrity: the end of the duty to report, with betting continuing in the offshore market; the end of the evidence trail, as the regulator and police and judicial authorities lose access to betting data and client accounts; and a risk to sanctions and prosecutions, since monitoring by regulated operators supported sports sanctions and criminal cases in Brazil, including recent convictions. The report states that match manipulation is a crime under articles 198 to 200 of the General Sports Law (Law 14.597/2023), with a penalty of two to six years' imprisonment and a fine, and that reaching who placed a bet depended on mandatory client identification through facial recognition cross-checked against the Federal Revenue database.

The report notes that monitoring of Brazilian events does not disappear entirely, because IBIA alerts come from member operators worldwide and existed before Brazil had a regulated market. What the measure removes, it says, is the national layer: Brazilian bettors' account data, the duty to report to the Secretariat of Prizes and Betting (SPA/MF) and direct cooperation with Brazilian authorities. The IBIA also acknowledged a gap that predated the measure: about 40 operators with state licences, about 30 of them in Rio de Janeiro, were not subject to the integrity obligations of the federal framework.

The report was published a day after the Ministry of Justice created a division in the Federal Police to repress illegal betting and match manipulation. The ministry's Portaria MJSP no 1.325/2026 was published in the Diário Oficial da União on Tuesday 13 October. The report also cites a 2026 interministerial policy coordinating prevention of manipulation at national level. The IBIA said that without licensed operators the data source becomes the offshore market, which does not report, does not identify clients and does not cooperate with Brazilian authorities.

Citing estimates from consultancy H2 Gambling Capital, the report says the regulated market turned over about R$40bn a year in gross gaming revenue (GGR) before the prohibition, a figure it describes as compatible with official Finance Ministry data of R$36.9bn in 2025 and R$20.07bn in the first half of 2026. Without a legal alternative, the consultancy estimates about 60% of that spending, or approximately R$25bn, will continue to be bet with unlicensed operators, and the illegal market would rise from R$17bn to R$42bn. The report quotes the IBIA's summary: "A proibição elimina a oferta licenciada. Não elimina a demanda".

Before the measure, Brazil scored 77 out of 100 in the IBIA's assessment, carried out with H2 on the basis of 27 criteria, above Portugal's 68 and below Great Britain's 86. The country's best scores were in product (19 of 20) and integrity (8 of 10), and its worst in taxation (12 of 20). The IBIA identified fiscal instability as the regime's main negative point, citing an increase in the GGR rate within less than a year, proposals of 18% and 24%, attempts at retroactive collection and the CIDE-Bets, approved in the Senate and withdrawn by the Chamber.

The IBIA, a non-profit association based in Brussels and funded by betting operators, recommends that the government reconsider the prohibition and that the market's future be decided through the ordinary legislative process, with dialogue with the sector and a published impact assessment. It also argues that the integrity framework should be preserved, including monitoring, reporting of suspicious betting and cooperation with authorities, and that enforcement should focus on unlicensed operators. The report is titled "Brasil: o custo da proibição" and runs to five pages.