What the law changed
Before it, online betting in Brazil lived in a regulatory vacuum: the activity was not banned, but it also had no license, no regulatory authority, and no clear rules on taxation and player protection. Law No. 14,790/2023 closed that vacuum by turning fixed-odds betting — sports and online games — into a licensed and supervised activity, with the regulated market operating from 2025.
The responsible authority is the Secretariat of Prizes and Betting (SPA), part of the Ministry of Finance, which issues the authorizations and publishes the ordinances detailing how the law is applied. The regulation lives in those ordinances: the law sets the structure, and the secondary rules define technical requirements, deadlines, and procedures, which continue to be updated.
The text of the law itself also keeps moving. Law No. 15,358/2026 amended Law No. 14,790/2023 to tighten the net around the unlicensed market: it inserted Art. 21-A, requiring financial and payment institutions to block the accounts of operators the competent authority has found to be irregular; Arts. 24-A to 24-C, imposing integration with interoperable systems for sharing electronic-fraud signals, enhanced due diligence, and dedicated safeguards inside the PIX payment scheme — including integration with centralized risk and self-exclusion directories (Art. 24-B, § 1, III); and new administrative infractions under Art. 39, among them carrying or monetizing advertising tied to an unauthorized operator (item XII). Decree No. 13,033/2026 implemented Art. 21-A, setting out the procedure for blocking accounts and forfeiting funds to the federal government. In parallel, Complementary Law No. 224/2025, Art. 6, imposed joint liability for taxes on the activity on payment institutions that process transactions with unauthorized operators after formal notice, and on anyone who advertises those operators.
What the operation must comply with
| Obligation | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Federal authorization | Operate under a license issued by the SPA/MF, with corporate and capital requirements |
| Player identification (KYC) | Verify identity with facial recognition and bar accounts of minors |
| Anti-money-laundering (AML) | Monitor transactions and report suspicious transactions to COAF (Art. 25) |
| Responsible gaming | Offer self-exclusion, limits, and risk communication to the player |
| Taxation on gaming revenue | Levy on the operation's revenue, on top of corporate taxes |
| Advertising with restrictions | Rules on how the brand may communicate and with whom |
There are also operational requirements that affect the choice of technology: games must come from certified providers and the platform must produce auditable reports of the operation.
Effect on those who want to open a betting business
The regulation raised the cost and the time to enter — license, corporate structure, and compliance stopped being optional — but it also gave legal predictability to a market that previously operated without it. For newcomers, the practical consequence is that the technology decision has become inseparable from the regulatory one: a platform that already ships KYC, AML, responsible-gaming tools, and auditable reporting built in significantly reduces the operation's compliance work.
That is why the white-label model gained traction in regulated Brazil: the compliance infrastructure arrives ready and the operator focuses on brand, acquisition, and retention. It is worth noting, however, that the platform covers the technology layer — regulatory responsibility for the operation still rests with the licensed operator, and the licensing structure should be confirmed with specialized legal advice.