Brazil blocks indebted citizens from betting for six months under new rules
Brazil’s government is tightening rules around fixed-odds betting to prevent newly renegotiated debt from being gambled away. The Ministry of Finance has finalised proposals that will block people in debt relief programs from opening betting accounts for six months. Finance Minister Dario Durigan confirmed the plans would be sent to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Tuesday. The new measures focus on the Desenrola 2.0 program, which helps debtors and creditors reach agreements to ease financial strain. Under the updated rules, anyone joining this debt renegotiation scheme will be automatically added to a restricted gambling registry. Fixed-odds betting platforms and apps will then be barred from registering these individuals for half a year.
The Ministry of Finance’s Prize and Betting Secretariat (SPA) held discussions with industry representatives to integrate checks against the List of Debtors. A financial institution will centralise debt information and share it with the SPA’s query system, ensuring betting operators can enforce the restrictions.
Beyond debt-related curbs, the government is also closing loopholes in betting payments. Changes to SPA/MF Ordinance No. 615/24 will explicitly ban funding bets through PIX credit, PIX instalments, or any method that indirectly uses bank credit. The updated framework will amend SPA/MF Ordinance No. 1.231/24 and introduce new regulatory instructions based on existing SPA/MF guidelines. The proposals aim to stop people from turning renegotiated debt into fresh gambling losses. Betting platforms must now verify users against the restricted registry before allowing account creation. The rules will take effect once approved by the president.
