Brazilian gambling regulation received an "excellent" rating on its anniversary from an internal source. The award and the tone set by Deputy Minister of Gambling Regulation, Carlos Renato Xavier, this week at the "Future of Betting in Brazil" forum were clear - "Implementing regulation in the gambling industry, compared to the long period of unregulated chaos, has proven to be a successful solution." He did not use the typical bureaucratic phrase "there is still room for improvement," but instead rated it as a "complete success." In his view, a regulated environment characterized by ongoing national involvement, consumer protection regulation, public interest maintenance, and industry health is reducing conflicts and preventing problems from escalating due to lack of supervision. Since the start of authorization and drafting regulations in 2024, this year has been described by him as a "period of intensive learning."
First watch how others fall, then pave your own way
Xavier admits that building this regulatory framework took a lot of time, but the time cost has brought a late-mover advantage - "Observing the problems and failures in other international experiences, and embedding protective measures into the Brazilian model based on these observations." The SPA team has been in continuous dialogue with operators, suppliers, and other market stakeholders throughout the year, while benchmarking against global best regulatory practices. This strategy of "first watching others fall before walking" is not common in Brazil's past public policy history, but for a market that is being built from scratch and has already reached hundreds of billions of reais, the cost of avoiding detours may be more important than rushing.
The main focus is on combating the illegal market: the President, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Justice are all stepping on the gas
Xavier has identified combating illegal gambling as the "number one challenge for the industry," and revealed that just last week, two new regulations aimed at combating the illegal market were issued - referring to the 48-hour asset freeze order signed by President Lula and the national enforcement action Conto da Sorte. Readers of the PASA official website may have noticed that Brazil has recently implemented three major actions from legislation to enforcement - Order No. 1,766 blocking payment channels, the asset freeze order targeting illegal gambling assets, and the Conto da Sorte operation dismantling 37 shell companies - these three steps were implemented in less than a month, and Xavier's speech at the forum provided a strategic footnote from within the regulatory layer for this intensive crackdown.
It is also worth noting the political ecology changes he described: "Institutional discourse is undergoing a significant shift, with the President, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Justice now aligned, all forces are concentrated in the right direction. This is not a regression in the regulatory process, but an escalation in the intensity of strikes against illegal operators who operate outside the rules, increasing consumer, economic, and industry integrity risks." The three-pronged approach of stepping on the gas simultaneously is not easy to coordinate in Brazil's political context. He emphasized that interdepartmental regulatory actions are not limited to SPA, with the Ministry of Health, Conar, and the Consumer Protection Secretariat participating in last week's congressional debate, forming a "coordinated and vigilant joint action" that is creating a larger net than a single regulatory agency. In Xavier's view, Brazil's regulatory story has moved beyond the stage of proving legality and has entered the deep waters of enforcement and collaboration.
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