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Some 83 percent of unlicensed gambling sites blocked by Brazil's regulator now redirect users to other web addresses and apps, according to a new survey.
The survey was conducted by leading Brazilian media outlet UOL and examined 7,599 of the more than 11,500 unlicensed sites blocked by the government since October.
UOL stated that all of the sites were accessed without the need to use a VPN, which allows internet users to set their location to somewhere else to avoid geo-blocking.
It also found that some unauthorised platforms copied the graphic elements and user interfaces of famous licensed brands to attract players.
Players were often redirected to other sites, presumably owned by the same parent company, or to a downloadable app, which is harder to govern.
Brazil’s telecommunications regulatory agency, Anatel, has long warned that blocking illegal gambling sites is not a simple fix. The regulator's president has lobbied Congress for broader enforcement authority in this area.
Despite UOL's survey finding that these sites were accessible without a VPN, Brazilians have a strong record of using them, pouring further doubt on the effectiveness of website blocking measures.
When X (formerly Twitter) was temporarily banned by a Federal Supreme Court justice in August 2024, VPN usage reportedly spiked 1,600 percent in the following 24 hours, according to a VPN cybersecurity firm.
According to a global study of more than 150,000 people conducted by Nord VPN, nearly a third of Brazilians use VPNs.
Luiz Felipe Maia, a gaming lawyer and founding partner at Maia Yoshiyasu law firm in Sao Paulo, said that the challenges with web blocking were expected.
“IP blocking by itself is not efficient,” Maia told Vixio GamblingCompliance.
“We will only see some actual results once enforcement is made against payment service providers and advertisers. But, at the end of the day, regardless of such measures, the black market will continue to thrive if the cost of doing business in Brazil and the regulatory limitations remain this high.”
The SPA and Anatel came to a formal agreement in December to effectively implement blocking illegal sites. It assigned the SPA the responsibility of identifying and documenting the sites and then sending decisions to Anatel for implementation via Brazilian ISPs.
Meanwhile, the SPA has also taken its first actions to restrict payment processing for offshore gambling sites.
On Friday (February 21), the regulator said that it had notified 22 banking and payment institutions believed to be providing financial services to illegal sites.
