Kataguiri’s PL 706-2025 aims to amend the Brazil Penal Code from 1940, making the promotion of illegal gambling a criminal offence.

The penalty for those found guilty would be a prison sentence of between one and four years, as well as a fine.

However, the penalty will be doubled if the person in question:

• Promotes, publishes or disseminates illegal gambling promotion to children and adolescents.
• Uses advertising techniques targeting those in a vulnerable situation, such as those experiencing financial difficulties.
• Is a digital influencer or public figure and uses that status to promote illegal gambling.
• Has participation in the profits or any form of commission from the unlicensed gambling company.

“The regulation of gambling has been a recurring theme in Brazil, but the proliferation of illegal and unauthorised betting platforms poses serious risks to society,” Kataguiri’s justification read.

“The creation of the crime of promoting illegal gambling, as per this proposal, is essential to curb the dissemination and incentive of activities that harm consumers, encourage money laundering, and exploit social vulnerabilities.”

Gambling advertising a hot topic in Brazil

Advertising has been one of the more controversial aspects of the betting market in Brazil, which entered its new era of regulation on 1 January.

Over the back end of 2024, a number of bills were introduced seeking to limit gambling advertising.

On 6 December the regulator, the Secretariat of Prizes and Bets (SPA), placed into immediate effect a number of advertising measures initially intended to come in from the legal market launch date.

These included a ban on advertising that had children or adolescents as a target audience, as well as marketing that used images of children or elements “particularly appealing” to minors.

The topic of advertising was hotly contested last year amid controversy over the Asian-themed slot Fortune Tiger, with a number of influencers arrested for promoting the game and causing followers to lose large sums of money.

Illegal gambling also looms large over the licensed sector, with the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) conceding it was struggling to block the black market sites identified by the SPA.

Regis Dudena, head of the SPA, maintains regulations will nullify the black market’s impact, telling EXAME on 3 January: “What we believe is that, over time, operating illegally will become less and less viable, both due to the regulator’s actions and the market’s adjustments.”