Fazenda announces partnership with international bodies to monitor the betting sector

The Ministry of Finance announced, this Tuesday (29), that the federal government has signed a partnership with international monitoring and intelligence organizations to guarantee the “integrity of the sports betting sector”.

The announcement was made through a statement released by the ministry (read it in full here). According to the note, the Prizes and Betting Secretariat (SPA) signed technical cooperation agreements with the following bodies:

• Genius Sports;
• International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA);
• Sport Integrity Global Alliance (Siga e Siga Latin America);
• Sport Radar.

“With the formalization of these partnerships, SPA strengthens the safety network focused on preventing and combating the manipulation of sporting results in the country through betting,” says the statement from the Treasury.

According to the ministry’s Prizes and Betting Secretary, Regis Dudena, the four international organizations are “globally recognized in monitoring the sector” and operate in countries such as Canada, England and Australia.

“(The organs) They have highly qualified expertise to identify suspicious betting movements, helping to identify and contain attempts to manipulate results”, guarantees the Ministry of Finance.

It will be up to these four organizations to provide information about the betting market to the SPA. “They will train us so that we can identify possible cases of manipulation and related fraud; in addition to information sharing. It’s a two-way street,” said Dudena.

According to the federal government, there will be no transfers of resources or payments from either party. “The keynote of the initiative is to strengthen the security of the entire system, protecting the betting market, sport and society as a whole”, says the Treasury.

Also according to Dudena, the monitoring network “protects bettors, athletes, teams and fixed-odd betting operators from malicious actions by fraudsters”. “We can and must share information, so that all operators can know about suspected cases”, says the secretary.

The agreements signed by the Ministry of Finance with international bodies last for 5 years. “SPA is open to talking to other organizations that work on betting integrity,” says Dudena.

Also read:

• Lula: “If regulation doesn’t cope, I’ll put an end to betting”
• Alckmin: if the result of legalizing betting is not good, it should be banned
• Alckmin’s Ministry says that bets did not increase debt or bring down retail
• Pacheco confirms CPI das Bets in the Senate; find out how it will work
• “BC does not have any type of responsibility over betting regulation”, says Galípolo
• Cármen Lúcia says that bets use “suckers”: “Abuse of one human being by another”

Lula: “If regulation doesn’t work, I’ll put an end to betting”

About ten days ago, the president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) said that the government chose to regulate betting sites instead of banning them, but warned that so-called “bets” could be banned from the country if regulation is not enough to solve the problem.

“We’ll see if regulation can handle it. If regulation takes care of it, the problem will be solved. If I can’t handle it, I’ll finish (with the bets)”, said the president, in an interview with Metropolis Radiofrom Bahia.

“It’s to be very clear. You have no control over the humblest people, children with cell phones in their hands making bets. We don’t want that”, added Lula.

R$20 billion per month

According to a survey released by the BC, Brazilians spent around R$20 billion per month on bets between January and August 2024. In total, approximately 24 million people made at least one Pix for online betting companies in the first eight months of this year.

In August alone, it is estimated that 5 million people who belong to families benefiting from Bolsa Família sent R$3 billion to online betting companies, using Pix. The average amount spent per person was R$100.