IBIA Flags Severe Sports Integrity Risks from Brazil’s Online Betting Ban and Offshore Shift
The IBIA warns Brazil’s 25 September betting ban will drive 60% of spend offshore, ending integrity monitoring that flagged 25 alerts in 2025. Sports sponsorship (24% of club commercial revenue) and government tax income (R$8.7bn in H1 2025) are also at risk. Integrity leaders say the move lacks evidence and proportionality.
SCCG Take — The ban hands offshore operators market share while stripping regulators of data and revenue. The 25 October election may allow a recalibrated, evidence-based regime that maintains oversight.
The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) has protested that Brazil’s ban on online betting will produce disastrous consequences for sport in the country. President Lula da Silva announced the ban on 25 September. The association expects the bulk of activity to move offshore.
The IBIA projects that around 60% of Brazilian betting spend, around R$25bn (£3.7m), will head to unregulated operators. This migration will remove the integrity monitoring that regulated operators supply. In 2025 the IBIA flagged 25 suspicious alerts in Brazilian sport, including 19 in football and five in basketball.
Illegal iGaming operators rose from 331 to 575 in the first 24 hours after the announcement. Emanuel Macedo de Medeiros, Chief Executive Officer of the Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA), remarked that “dismantling the regulated market is not the answer.” Medeiros added: “No industry deserves to set its own rules, but the state must act responsibly with evidence and proportionality, and a credible transition. This is not what we have witnessed.”
Economic and Enforcement Losses
Brazilian sports organisations will lose sponsorship revenue. Of the 20 clubs in the top-flight Brasileiro Serie A, 14 have active deals with betting companies. Sponsorship accounts for 24% of clubs’ commercial revenue in 2025. The government will also lose tax income. Gross gambling revenue was taxed at 13%, rising to 18% by 2028. In H1 2025 more than R$8.7bn (£1.2bn) in betting taxes was declared.
Authorities will lose market data and customer account trails that support investigations into match-fixing. The regulated market has effectively ended after a Stake injunction expired this week. As reported by SBC News, these outcomes follow a policy introduced only months after the market launched on 1 January 2025.
The Election Decision Point
The election run-off on 25 October will shape what follows. Opposition candidate Flavio Bolsonaro has called the ban a political play and may prove open to regulated betting in some form. The current path trades away oversight and revenue streams for an untested prohibition, leaving Brazilian sport and enforcement agencies with fewer tools than before the regulated market existed.
Reporting: SBC News
Generated by SCCG’s automated editorial system from published source reporting. SCCG Management holds editorial responsibility.
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