Brazil gambling regulator orders blocks on 1,800 domains

Brazil’s telecoms agency has been told to step up enforcement ahead of the launch of regulated online gambling.

Brazil.- The new Brazilian gambling regulator, the SPA, has asked the national telecoms agency Anatel to order blocks on 1,800 domains that it says were offering online gambling without having applied for a federal licence. It’s the third such order issued since September. Together, the three orders list 5,200 gambling sites.

Brazil’s regulated online gambling market is to launch on January 1, but the SPA has granted permission for grey market operators to continue operating as long as they have applied for a licence. Operators that did not apply for a licence by October 1 are no longer allowed to offer gambling in Brazil.

Anatel says it has issued blocking orders but that it has limited powers to force internet service providers to implement blocks swiftly. The watchdog’s president, Carlos Baigorri, also said that gambling platforms often evaded blocks by switching their infrastructures or using unregulated IP domains.

“We receive the list of domains from the Ministry of Finance, and block them all, and then the Ministry of Finance continues monitoring to see if the domain has been altered, or the site has moved to a new domain,” he said.

The SPA has begun to advise the operators that have qualified for Brazilian online gambling licences. Operators will have 30 days to take the final steps to gain their licence, including making payment of the R$30 million (€5m) fee and completion of platform certification checks. The complete list of approved gambling operators is to be published by the end of December in time for the market’s launch.

Meanwhile, late regulatory updates have seen the Supreme Court order the implementation of rules to address recent concerns about customers gambling using welfare funds. The court has ordered that articles be amended to ban the use of social benefits for gambling.