Brazil’s Ministry of Sport told the Supreme Federal Court that the country’s ability to detect and combat match-fixing was built around a licensed fixed-odds betting market, warning that a blanket prohibition weakens formal integrity controls.
Giovanni Rocco, the National Secretary of Sports Betting and Economic Development of Sport, presented the ministry’s account of anti-match-fixing work since November 2024 at the Nov. 3 public hearing before Justice Luiz Fux. Rocco represented Sports Minister Paulo Henrique Cordeiro. The ministry was among 28 participating entities at the hearing, as we reported in October.
According to BNLData, the ministry linked real-time odds monitoring, integrity ordinances, cooperation with international entities and national sports policy to the regulated market. Its position was that the framework works because authorised operators are identified and subject to rules on licensing, integrity, permitted betting products and website monitoring.
The ministry said monitoring by IC360, Sportradar, the International Betting Integrity Association, or IBIA, and Genius Sports depends on operators flagging unusual bets and cooperating with authorities. It also argued that enforcement against unauthorised betting websites requires a workable distinction between legal and illegal operators.
Law 14.790/2023 also directs part of betting revenue to the sports sector. Rocco said the National Secretariat of Sports Betting and Economic Development of Sport had been created during the regulatory process, describing the construction of the framework as difficult.
Rocco warned that classifying all betting as illegal would move illicit gambling onto social media. Betting on Brazilian competitions had continued after the provisional measure through foreign-based platforms and clandestine channels, the ministry said, but those outlets do not face the integrity-reporting, odds-alert or cooperation duties imposed on authorised operators.
That gap matters because Brazilian competitions can be targeted through bets placed abroad and match-fixing networks operate across several countries. Brazil imposed its nationwide prohibition on fixed-odds betting, including sports betting and online gaming, on Sept. 25, after 21 months of a regulated market, according to IBIA.
Before the ban, more than 80 operators had been authorised and were required to monitor and report suspicious betting and integrate with integrity-monitoring organisations. IBIA recorded 25 suspicious-betting alerts involving Brazilian sports in 2025, compared with an annual average of 11 between 2021 and 2024. The association said the increase was consistent with better detection and reporting, and cautioned that fewer alerts after prohibition would not necessarily mean fewer suspicious bets.
IBIA, whose monitoring platform draws on intelligence from more than 90 members, said prohibition did not eliminate betting-related integrity risks, but made them harder to detect, investigate and address. It called for enforcement to focus on unlicensed offshore operators while preserving cooperation among authorities, sports bodies and independent monitors.
