Brazil Orders Banks to Block Illegal Bet Payments in 24h

Brazil’s Secretariat of Prizes and Betting (SPA), the Ministry of Finance unit regulating the country’s fixed-odds gaming sector, has issued Ordinance SPA/MF No. 2,750/2026, establishing a strict 24-hour mandatory mandate for financial institutions to block accounts linked to unauthorized sports betting and online gaming operators. Published in the Diário Oficial da União on Monday, September 14, 2026, the regulation took immediate effect, replacing the framework previously governed by Ordinance SPA/MF No. 566/2025.

Signed on September 10 by SPA Secretary Daniele Correa Cardoso, the measure consolidates enforcement provisions granted under Law No. 14,790/2023, Complementary Law No. 224/2025, and Decree No. 13,033/2026. That reaches straight into Pix, Brazil’s instant payment system, which gets special attention in the text.

By shifting regulatory focus directly to payment pathways, the government aims to choke off capital flows feeding black-market operators rather than relying solely on ISP-level domain blocks.

A Checklist of Red Flags for Compliance Teams

The core of the rule is Article 5, which lists the signs institutions must monitor. Several of them read like a description of how an unlicensed sports betting site actually takes deposits.

The list includes repeated amounts in ranges typical of betting deposits, a high number of small or medium transfers from different senders in short bursts, and Pix descriptions containing words like “apostas,” “bônus,” “recarga,” “palpites” and “prêmios.” Swapping Pix keys, QR codes or receiving accounts right after a block is also a flag, as are companies registered to virtual offices, coworking spaces or home addresses, and newly created companies suddenly receiving floods of small payments.

Gateways and Front Companies Are in Scope

The ordinance also creates the idea of an “intermediary person,” anyone who repeatedly moves money on behalf of an irregular operator. Using payment gateways or other layers to hide who really receives the money counts as a warning sign too. Lawyers at CSMV Advogados note that the rule even flags recurring payments from people living outside the state that authorized a state-licensed operator.

The indicators don’t trigger automatic blocks. Institutions have up to 45 days from spotting a suspicious pattern to finish their review, and if the signs hold up, they report to the SPA. To help, the SPA must keep a public list of authorized operators, downloadable and eventually available by API, showing each company’s legal name, tax ID and approved brands and domains.

Twenty-Four Hours to Freeze the Money

The hard edge comes after the SPA formally finds an operator is working illegally. It issues a finding of irregularity, notifies the institutions and copies the Banco Central do Brasil. From that notice, banks have 24 hours to freeze the operator’s accounts and stop new payments, and 48 hours after the block to confirm they’ve done it.

The duty to stop payments applies even when the bank does not hold an account for the operator. A customer who tries to send money to a flagged recipient has to be told the transaction can’t go through because of an SPA notification. The frozen balances are then subject to a forfeiture process in favor of the federal government, run through the Justice Ministry’s public security secretariat.

Ignore It and the Tax Bill Could Be Yours

There’s a financial stick as well. A blocking notice can come with a formal warning under Complementary Law 224 of December 2025 and Finance Ministry Portaria 1.766 of June 2026. An institution that keeps processing payments after that warning can be held jointly liable for the illegal operator’s taxes.

Banks that report in good faith are protected from civil and administrative liability for doing so, which should make them more willing to flag borderline cases. The ordinance replaces Portaria SPA/MF 566 of March 2025, which handled the same problem in much vaguer terms.

Why the Licensed Market Is Cheering

The legal industry has asked for exactly this kind of pressure. The Brazilian Institute for Responsible Gaming, known as IBJR, called the ordinance “an important advance in the fight against the illegal market and in strengthening the regulated fixed-odds betting sector.” It added that fast implementation “will be fundamental.”

That last point matters. The technical details of what banks must send the SPA, and in what format, depend on a separate normative instruction that hadn’t been published when the rule came out. Institutions then get 30 days from that instruction to adapt their systems, so the reporting side may not be fully live for weeks.

Blocking websites has not been enough on its own, and the rule’s own red flags assume operators will simply switch to a fresh account after every block. So the government is going after the payment methods that fund those sites. The SPA has already blocked 66,000 illegal domains.