Turnover of Illegal Betting Platforms in Brazil in 2025
The turnover of illegal betting platforms continues to grow in Brazil despite efforts by authorities to block such websites. In the first two months of 2025, illegal platforms recorded over 30 million visits, resulting in a shadow turnover of $60.2 billion.
Comparison with the Legal Market
For comparison, the legal betting market processed 2 billion visits during the same period, with a turnover of $41.3 billion. Despite the clear dominance of the legal segment, illegal sites continue to attract a significant number of users. These data, obtained from the Aposta Legal platform, show that illegal betting holds a small but still noticeable share of the betting market in Brazil.
Mechanisms to Combat Illegal Platforms
The Secretariat for Prizes and Betting (SPA), operating under the Ministry of Finance of Brazil, is actively fighting illegal betting websites. Since the beginning of 2024, more than 10,000 domains have been blocked, but only about 20% of them have actually ceased operations. Approximately 80% of sites continue to operate by changing their addresses or redirecting users to new pages.
Impact of Illegal Platforms on the Economy
Illegal betting causes significant losses not only to the government but also to users who lose the protection provided by legal operators. Every Brazilian who spends money on illegal platforms risks being left without legal protection in case of fraud or other issues.
According to Aposta Legal data, the expected movement of funds on legal platforms in 2025 is approximately R$240 billion. While illegal sites occupy a smaller share, they still generate significant revenue. It is expected that the shadow market will bring in about R$350 million this year, indicating a large volume of cash flows on illegal platforms.
Reasons for the Prevalence of Illegal Sites
The main reason for the popularity of illegal betting platforms is their secrecy and ability to bypass blocks. In most cases, they are used to avoid strict checks and penalties related to violating legislation. One distinctive feature of such platforms is the use of numbers and identical terms in domain names.
For example, among the blocked sites, the largest number are domains containing numbers like “win,” “777,” or “888.” Often, sites contain only minimal changes in their names or URLs, allowing them to remain active even after being blocked.
Key Features of Illegal Platforms:
- Frequent use of numbers in domain names (e.g., win96q.com or win96p.com).
- Use of popular terms like “win,” “777,” “casino,” and “888.”
- Small changes in URLs to avoid blocks.
Challenges in Monitoring Illegal Websites
Monitoring illegal betting platforms is a complex task since such sites frequently change their addresses and move to new domains. This makes the work of law enforcement and regulatory bodies challenging and less effective.
According to research, by the end of 2024, more than 7,000 blocked domains continued to operate, highlighting the relevance of the issue. Despite efforts, blocked platforms continue to develop new strategies to bypass blocks, making the fight against them difficult.
Conclusion
Illegal betting in Brazil continues to grow despite government efforts and website blockages. The growth in turnover of these platforms indicates that the fight against them requires further efforts in monitoring and increasing user awareness about the potential risks. It is important to understand that every user participating in illegal betting jeopardizes their security and loses legal protection.