Sports betting in Brazil under suspicion
How legal are betting in Brazil? Now that the legislation that would approve gambling in the South American country is about to be ratified by the Senate, the journalistic investigation page The Intercept has published a report where the practices of some well-known Brazilian betting sites are called into question. Although gambling is not formally illegal, as long as it is not located on the national territory, the current legislation leaves more questions than answers.
Sportsbet.io it is the official sponsor of the São Paulo and Flamengo football clubs in Brazil and Rosario Central in Argentina. Most Brazilian football teams are today sponsored by bookmakers, although their operations are not legal in the country. ©sergio souza/Pexels
All analysts agree. The Brazilian betting market is promising and legislation that regulates both face-to-face and online gambling can only be beneficial. For the country that would raise money that would be invested in education and health programs, and for operators who want to operate in sustainable markets.
But gambling in Brazil is still illegal ; or more or less illegal, for sure it is not very well known. In 2018, then-President Michel Temer passed provisional legislation that decriminalized gambling in the country and created a legal framework for its legalization. However, this hardly meant that the bookmakers were going to be allowed to act as long as they did not operate from Brazilian territory.
In practice, what it means is that internet bookmakers are tolerated domiciled outside the country and with one of those legal licenses that allow to operate anywhere, it is not very well known how . The stamps of Curaçao, the island of the Netherlands Antilles, or that of the gaming commission of the Canadian Kahnawake Reserve are the best known. Malta and Gibraltar are also regulations appreciated by operators of the digital world.
Legal or illegal, gambling moves a lot of money in Brazil. According to estimates, this year the bets could be moving more than one and a half billion euros . It is not strange that the big international operators have put more than their eyes on the lucrative Brazilian market. Houses like Sportingbet (Entain) or Betsson are good proof of this .
Pixbet in the crosshairs of Intercept Brasil
But in addition to the international operators that have focused on the Brazilian betting market not only with localized pages but also exercising sponsorships especially in football, there are also local bookmakers. Pixbet is one of them and The Intercept journalists have wanted to go to the bottom of the business .
According to The Intercept's research, Pixbet it would have started in 2012 as a small betting shop in a town near Campina Grande, the second city in the state of Paraíba. It was not very well known what it was about, and it was often confused as a subsidiary of Sportingbet, since the local used the odds of the well-known British operator. Perhaps it was a sought-after confusion. From here the business grew, and a lot.
He grew to the point of becoming in ten years in one of the leading betting brands in Brazil. Today it is the largest football sponsor in the country, and since in 2018 betting is no longer illegal, at least formally, the business can only get better. 35 of the 40 football clubs in the two main categories of Brazilian football are sponsored by bookmakers. Pixbet is present in 10 of them.
So far everything is normal. But The Intercept investigators wanted to find out how a Brazilian bookmaker has to do with the most ambiguous legislation and that does not allow them, in principle, to appear as a national operator. Pixbet operates three online sites that are little more than replicas from Pixbet.com . Officially operates from Curaçao.
However, The Intercept was able to verify that monetary transactions on Pixbet are far from located in Curaçao through international payment companies they took place much closer. In fact, it would be up to four Brazilian companies that receive the deposited money. Two of them would be authorized to send small amounts of money abroad, while the other two would be legal entities linked to the family of the owner of Pixbet and based in Campina Grande.
It is quite possible that the money deposited at the bookmaker has never left Brazil. If so, Pixbet would be incurring in an illegality and the page could be canceled and its owners prosecuted. It is one of the problems of not having clear legislation in this regard and a state entity with the mission of supervising everything that happens in the gaming world.
But things are changing and the Brazilian Parliament passed the legislation in March that there would be give way to the legalization of gambling in the country. Now, the proposal is in the Senate, which, it seems, is taking it in stride. No doubt waiting for what may happen with the general elections scheduled for this October.
