Brazil's regulated betting market, one year in: what it changed for Portuguese-language placements

Brazil's regulated fixed-odds betting market opened on 1 January 2025. For the twenty-one months that followed, Brazilian Portuguese publishers were a lawful channel for betting content under one of the most detailed advertising rulebooks in the sector. On 25 September 2026 a provisional measure prohibited the operation and advertising of fixed-odds betting nationwide, and the channel closed overnight. This article sets out what the regulated year changed for sponsored content and affiliate placements, where the law stands as of 29 October 2026, and why Portugal has to be treated as a different market. Every regulatory statement links to the primary source.

The framework that opened the market

Law 14.790 of 29 December 2023 created the legal basis for fixed-odds betting and placed it under the Ministry of Finance's Secretariat of Prizes and Bets (SPA); the legislation is collected on the SPA's legislation page. Ordinance SPA/MF 827 of 21 May 2024 set the authorisation procedure, and definitive authorisations run for five years, as the ministry explained when it issued the first batch in February 2025. Ordinance SPA/MF 722 of 2 May 2024 required every betting channel to operate on a .bet.br domain, registered through registro.br and limited to the number of authorised brands, with no other domain permitted, as the ministry confirmed in November 2024.

The market opened on 1 January 2025 with 66 authorised companies. Twelve months later the SPA reported that 79 authorised companies had served 25.2 million bettors during 2025 and that more than 25,000 unlicensed sites had been blocked; by July 2026 the count stood at 85 authorised companies.

For a link buyer the .bet.br rule was the single most useful change. It made the licensed operators identifiable from the address alone, and it gave publishers a simple test for which brands they could carry.

What the rulebook meant for publishers and affiliates

Advertising was governed by Ordinance SPA/MF 1.231 of 31 July 2024, applying from 1 January 2025. Three provisions shaped Portuguese-language placements. Article 12 prohibited content suggesting easy winnings, associating betting with financial success or aimed at minors. Article 15 required every communication, including testimonial content and material on websites, blogs and social networks, to be identifiable as advertising. Article 21 made operators jointly liable for the advertising of their affiliates, defined as anyone paid by results such as the number of bettors brought in, a point the ministry stressed when the ordinance was issued.

In practice this moved the compliance burden onto the operator's marketing team. Sponsored articles on Brazilian news portals were labelled as advertising, operators asked to approve affiliate copy before publication, and publishers asked for evidence that the advertised brand held an authorisation. Content for brands without a .bet.br domain became unplaceable on reputable Brazilian publishers well before the law required it.

The rules tightened again in July 2026. Ordinance SPA/MF 1.964 of 3 July 2026 required every betting advertisement, from 17 July 2026, to carry one of three standardised warnings occupying at least ten per cent of the advertisement. Interministerial Ordinance MF/SECOM/MJSP 73 of 10 July 2026 extended responsibility to anyone who publishes, distributes or boosts a betting advertisement, required them to confirm the advertiser against the SPA's list of authorised operators before publication, and classed advertising aimed at minors as abusive. From that point a publisher carrying a sponsored betting article was itself a regulated party.

25 September 2026: the provisional measure

Provisional Measure 1.394 of 25 September 2026 prohibits the operation, offering, intermediation and advertising of fixed-odds betting throughout Brazil, amends Law 14.790 and creates an inter-institutional committee to police illegal operation and advertising. According to the Senate's summary, existing advertising and sponsorship had to be removed within ten days, platforms had to go offline from 6 October and authorisations were extinguished on 25 October. Ordinance SPA/MF 3.005 of 2 October 2026 sets the closing obligations of operators whose authorisations lapse, listed on the same SPA legislation page.

The measure took effect on publication but is not settled law. Congress must convert it within the constitutional deadline or it lapses; the Senate's news service put the voting date at 23 November 2026, and the joint committee to examine it was constituted on 26 October 2026. Two industry associations have challenged the measure before the Supreme Court, and the rapporteur has scheduled a public hearing for 3 November 2026. The government has separately sent Congress a bill that would make operating or advertising betting a crime. As of 29 October 2026 the prohibition is in force and no court has suspended it.

What this means for Portuguese-language placements

For Brazil, the position is simple while the measure stands: a sponsored article or affiliate page that promotes a betting brand to a Brazilian audience is prohibited advertising, and Brazilian publishers have removed or refused such content. Betting placements on Brazilian Portuguese publishers should be paused rather than cancelled. If Congress converts the measure, the prohibition becomes permanent law; if it lapses or is suspended, the 2024 to 2026 rulebook described above returns, with the .bet.br test, the advertising label, the standardised warnings and the publisher's duty to check the operator's authorisation. A brief prepared to that standard will be usable in either case.

Portugal is a separate jurisdiction and is unaffected. Online gambling there is governed by the Regime Jurídico dos Jogos e Apostas Online (Decree-Law 66/2015) and supervised by the Serviço de Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos (SRIJ), whose legislation page collects the texts. Advertising follows the Código da Publicidade and the SRIJ's advertising rules, which require socially responsible content that protects minors and does not suggest easy gains or social success, and only SRIJ-licensed operators may be promoted. A Portuguese publisher does not reach a Brazilian audience, its readers expect European rather than Brazilian Portuguese, and a licence in one country says nothing about the other. Treating the two as one Portuguese market produces placements that are wrong in both.

Three habits follow. Classify Portuguese-language publishers by country first and language second. Check the advertised operator against the regulator's list for that country, the SPA for Brazil and the SRIJ for Portugal, before any content is written. Record the publisher's gambling policy at the point of ordering, because Brazilian publishers changed theirs twice in 2026 and may change again in November. In the RBN Media Portal every publisher carries a gambling policy classification and a language, so Portuguese-language sites can be filtered by policy before an order is placed; the publisher's country should still be confirmed for each site.