A ban on online casino for licensed operators in Brazil could push the illegal market share from 41% to 82%, according to a study by the National Association of Games and Lotteries (ANJL).
Between June and August, an average of 13.7 new underground sites launched daily without authorisation from the Ministry of Finance. During one monitoring week in mid-September, ANJL identified 6,409 illegal domains accessible to users. Of sites hosted outside Brazil, 55.8% use content distribution networks that mask the actual hosting location. Some 98.3% of domains do not end in .br.
ANJL president Plínio Lemos Jorge said a potential ban would drive millions of players to illegal platforms, most of them hosted abroad and paying no tax. The move would affect more than 25 million bettors registered on legal platforms. Brazil stands to lose between 3.6 billion and 7.4 billion reais in annual revenue, with the lower bound at $700.9 million.
'People will not stop playing — they will simply move to sites that do not pay tax,' Lemos Jorge said. 'The most vulnerable groups, whom the authorities want to protect, will be even less protected. These platforms offer no control mechanisms: no blocking of welfare recipients, no self-exclusion tools.'
