Suspected illegal betting links multiply after Brazil ban, monitoring shows

Suspected illegal betting links circulated more widely after Brazil's provisional measure restricting licensed betting, according to a report by the LegitBet monitoring system dated 9 October and shared by the Associação Nacional de Jogos e Loterias (ANJL). The report covers sites aimed at the Brazilian public. It does not attribute illegality to any address, stating that each site's status depends on analysis by the authorities.

By 8 October, the monitoring had recorded 41,716 suspected sites, of which 30,593 were confirmed. On that day alone, two days after authorised platforms removed their sites and applications, 79 new suspected sites appeared, 55 of them confirmed. Between 2 and 7 October, the system registered between 70 and 233 new domains per day.

Publicity of suspected links rose after the measure. Between 8 and 23 September, the average was 77 suspected links per day. The provisional measure took effect on 25 September, and between 1 and 7 October the average reached 549 links per day, about seven times more. The peak was on 7 October with 948 links, a day after the licensed sites were withdrawn; on 8 October there were 733.

The 55 sites confirmed on 8 October showed features the report describes as typical of the illegal market. Disposable domains: 82% had numbers in the name, and one name appeared across 13 domains. Generic endings predominated, with .com at 43.6%, followed by .vip at 12.7% and .bet at 7.3%; .org, .cc, .co, .net and .top also appeared. The pages offered "jogos Fortune", payment by PIX, registration with a mobile phone only, daily bonuses and referral bonuses, which in one case reached R$1m.

On that day, internet search was the main source of detections at 32%, followed by inclusion from other databases at 30%, networks of already monitored sites at 18%, Telegram channels at 13% and social networks at 8%, including Kwai, Instagram, Reddit and Snapchat. On Telegram, 90% of detected sites were confirmed as suspected.

The report states its figures are conservative. Since 5 October, only sites aimed at the Brazilian public have been counted. Domains on Anatel's blocking list are excluded from all counts, as are pages of authorised operators, so the numbers tend to underestimate the size of the clandestine market.

The data conflict with an argument made by economic officials. In an interview with O Globo on 14 October, the executive secretary of the Ministry of Planning, Guilherme Mello, said he had doubts about revenue losses from the end of the bets, arguing that the bettor would spend the money on something else: "Então é uma troca de mão de dinheiro". The special secretary of the Receita Federal, Robinson Barreirinhas, made the same argument in an interview with the same newspaper on 8 October.

The report says that reasoning holds only if the bettor stops betting; if the bettor moves to illegal platforms, the money continues to go to betting, but now abroad, and stops paying taxes and licence fees and funding the legal destinations that supported public security, sport, health and tourism, including the Federal Police fund. The bettor also loses the protections the regulation guaranteed. Before the provisional measure, the illegal market already accounted for more than 40% of bets, even after 22 months of regulation; according to the monitoring, it now occupies the space left by authorised operators.