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On May 28, Brazil’s Senate hastily voted to approve bill PL 2.985/2023 to establish major new restrictions for the advertising of fixed-odds betting on sports and casino games.
Although the bill is expected to undergo amendments in the lower house of Congress, the Senate’s fast-tracked vote on the legislation indicates that additional ad limits of some fashion are likely to be imposed in the coming months on a regulated Brazilian market that is still finding its feet following the launch of a new licensing regime on January 1, 2025.
The bigger picture
The 75-plus operators now licensed to offer sports betting and online casino games in Brazil are currently subject to several overlapping rules related to advertising and marketing.
- Chapter III of Ordinance 1.231/2024, as published in August 2024 by the Brazilian Ministry of Finance’s Secretariat for Prizes and Bets (SPA), establishes a series of formal requirements and restrictions and holds operators accountable both for their own advertising and marketing activities, as well as for those conducted on their behalf by contracted third parties, such as affiliates or digital influencers. Alongside the specific rules, the ordinance also requires licensed operators to be associated with a responsible advertising body, namely the Brazilian advertising council known as CONAR.
- Annex X of CONAR’s advertising code, adopted in late December 2023, imposes general guidelines for responsible advertising and marketing of fixed-odds betting. Although it cannot impose fines or other penalties, CONAR monitors compliance with its code and the council routinely publishes decisions to order non-compliant ads to be discontinued, in a comparable manner to the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK. CONAR has ruled five adverts for online betting to be non-compliant with Annex X so far in 2025, after several dozen earlier cases were ruled upon by the ad council last year.
- Article 29 of Brazil’s primary federal law on fixed-odds betting, Law 14.790/2023, expressly forbids operators from offering bonuses or other “prior advantages” to bettors. Ordinance 1.231 and subsequent guidance from the SPA have since clarified that the legal restriction prevents operators from offering welcome or other upfront bonuses, although free bets and other incentives offered to existing account-holders are permissible.
Taken together, Ordinance 1.231 and the CONAR code establish a series of rules and requirements on advertising that mirror various provisions in place in international jurisdictions.
In general, however, they do not impose limits on when and where online betting operators may advertise, so long as marketing activities are not targeted at children or adolescents. The rules also do not restrict which celebrities or other individuals may be involved in promoting online gambling, other than the more general requirements to avoid appealing to minors.
What restrictions are being imposed?
As approved by Brazil’s Senate, PL 2.985/2023 would codify certain requirements already included in the SPA’s ordinance or CONAR code, while imposing a range of more onerous restrictions on betting advertising. These proposed restrictions include:
- Prohibiting advertising on television, streaming platforms or other online media other than between 7:30pm and 12am at night. Outside these hours, betting operators would be able to advertise within a window of 15 minutes before or after the broadcast of live sports events; however, no betting ads could be broadcast during a sports event itself.
- Ads on radio would be prohibited apart from between 9am and 11am in the morning and 5pm and 12am in the evening.
- All print ads for online betting operators would be prohibited.
- No advertisements could include live odds for sports betting, other than those featured on the website or app of the operator itself.
- Billboard or other adverts would be prohibited in sports stadiums or arenas, with the exception of those for operators that hold the naming rights for the arena, where they are the title sponsor of the event being played, or where the operator is the shirt sponsor of one of the teams involved in the event.
- All athletes, influencers, artists or other celebrities would be prohibited from appearing in advertisements for online betting companies, with the only exception being for former athletes who have been retired for at least five years.
- Operators would be forbidden from sending pop-up notifications or text messages to bettors without their express consent to receive them.
- Advertising on social media would be limited to age-gated platforms to ensure betting ads are viewable only by users aged 18 or older.
- Betting operators may sponsor sports or cultural events or programmes, including those broadcast on television or through other media, but could do so only through the association of their brands with the event and the sponsorship could not involve any additional promotional messaging. Operators also could sponsor sports broadcasts or other television shows that are aired after 7:30pm, but sponsored communications could not include any incentives or inducements to gamble or make any references to betting odds.
Why should you care?
If enacted, the advertising restrictions approved by Brazil’s Federal Senate would force a material change in the marketing strategies of licensed operators at an early stage of the Brazilian regulated market’s development.
Licensed operators, particularly any newer entrants to the Brazilian market, would have more limited opportunities to build up brand recognition and promote themselves for the purposes of acquiring new customers. In many instances, established marketing arrangements with influencers or other endorsement partners would have to be ended.
Following the Senate’s approval of PL 2.985, Brazilian operators may now give closer consideration to alternative marketing strategies that they could pivot to in the event that the restrictions become law. Contingency clauses may also be inserted into future marketing contracts, reflecting the possibility of the harsher restrictions.
The risk of advertising limits being imposed so early in Brazil’s regulated era may be especially frustrating given that operators have had to pay a stiff upfront licensing fee of R$30m (approximately US$5.3m) and meet a range of challenging compliance requirements established by SPA regulations. As in other regulated markets, the ability of licensed operators to advertise is a key point of differentiation with those offshore operators that have not applied for a Brazilian licence.
In addition, the fact that the bill moved so quickly through the Senate – it was approved on the Senate floor on an expedited basis less than eight hours after being passed by one committee – highlights the generally negative public image of the online betting industry among members of Congress in Brasilia.
This is particularly significant because, alongside advertising restrictions, Brazil’s Congress is also due to consider several other policy issues in the coming months that will affect the gambling market. For example:
- Brazil’s Congress approved a major tax-reform law in late 2024 that includes a new selective tax to be applied to products deemed harmful to Brazilian consumers. Fixed-odds betting is one product that will be subject to the new tax, along with alcohol, tobacco and others, but members of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies must pass additional legislation in the coming months to establish exactly how and at what rate the selective tax will be applied in the case of online betting.
- A special investigatory commission, or CPI, was formed in the Senate in November 2024 to review Brazil’s online gambling market and make policy recommendations on marketing, responsible gambling and the use of AI, among other areas. The CPI is due to conclude its investigation and publish its report in mid-June. Although any recommendations will be non-binding and it is possible the CPI’s report is taken no further, the conclusion of the investigation is at least likely to draw further scrutiny to the industry and could trigger further legislation to impose tighter restrictions upon licensed operators.
- The fate of land-based gaming expansion also lies in the hands of Brazil’s Senate, which is slowly considering a bill passed by the lower house of Congress in February 2022 to authorise dozens of casino-resorts and hundreds of bingo halls across the country. The Senate’s swift approval of PL 2.985 underscores the influence of anti-gambling senators within the Congress’ upper chamber, and the resistance that proponents of casinos and bingo will have to overcome in order for the land-based gaming bill to be passed.
What happens next?
After passing the Senate, PL 2.985 now must be considered by the lower house of Congress, the Chamber of Deputies.
Theoretically, the lower house could decide to immediately vote upon the advertising bill; however, it is likelier that the bill will first be referred to one or several specialist committees to hold public hearings and consider potential amendments. Once recommended for approval by the assigned committees, the full Chamber of Deputies could also consider additional amendments on the Chamber floor before ultimately voting to either pass or reject the bill.
In the unlikely event that the Chamber approves PL 2.985 without making any changes to the Senate’s version, the bill would go to the desk of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to be signed into law. If amendments are approved by the lower house, then the Senate would vote again on the bill and decide whether each of the specific changes made by the Chamber of Deputies should be adopted or rejected.
Once approved by Congress, President Lula would be able to sign or veto the legislation, or alternatively partially veto the bill by enacting certain provisions but rejecting others. In the event of a partial veto, the Chamber of Deputies and Senate would retain the final say by jointly deciding whether to override the President and re-enact the law as originally approved.
As currently drafted, most advertising restrictions prescribed by PL 2.985 would take effect within 90 days, with the exception of a ban on in-stadium advertising, which would be afforded a 12-month grace period.
Given the various legislative steps still to go in the process, and the high-stakes involved for betting operators, media companies and sports teams, it is likely that potential advertising restrictions and how they evolve will remain in sharp focus in Brazil for a number of months to come.
