Brazil Suspends 14 Betting Sites, Including Three From a Company Facing Scrutiny
Brazil · Regulation
Key Facts
- The orderThe Secretaria de Prêmios e Apostas, the betting regulator inside the finance ministry, issued seven precautionary measures suspending 14 licensed sites belonging to six companies.
- The penaltyR$200,000 (about US$37,000) a day for carrying on regardless.
- The main chargeMost were not transmitting operating data to Sigap, the system the regulator uses to watch the market in real time.
- One was differentRR Participações was suspended over its corporate paperwork — it did not produce documents on who actually owns it.
- One got twoPixbet received two separate measures: one on data, one for lacking the tools to identify compulsive gamblers.
- The datesSigned Thursday 13 August, published Friday 14 August 2026.
The regulator did not accuse these firms of rigging anything. It accused them of not filing, which in a licensed market is the offence that matters.
Brazil’s finance ministry ordered 14 licensed betting sites to stop taking bets. The decisions were signed on Thursday and published on Friday, and the reason in most cases is that the companies were not sending the regulator the data they are required to send.
Who was suspended
Six companies, fourteen domains. ZeroUmBet Plataforma Digital lost zeroum.bet.br, sportvip.bet.br and energia.bet.br.
Pixbet Soluções Tecnológicas lost pix.bet.br, ganhei.bet.br and betdasorte.bet.br. Select Operations lost mma.bet.br, betvip.bet.br and papigames.bet.br.
RR Participações lost multi.bet.br, brx.bet.br and rico.bet.br. Enseada Serviços e Tecnologia lost kbet.bet.br, and Nexus International lost megaposta.bet.br.
These are licensed operators, not the illegal sites the government has been blocking for a year. That is what makes the action notable.
The ZeroUm question, carefully
Three of the suspended domains belong to ZeroUm Bet, a company founded by the lawyer and influencer Deolane Bezerra.
She is not the current owner. Ownership was transferred in December 2024 to José Daniel Carvalho Saturnino, who is the partner-administrator on record.
Bezerra has been in custody since 21 May 2026 on suspicion of laundering money for the PCC criminal organisation, and became a defendant on organised crime and money laundering charges in June. She denies wrongdoing.
There is a further wrinkle. ZeroUmBet was added to the authorised-operator list in April 2025 by court order, after a judge compelled the regulator to include it. The regulator has now suspended a platform it was made to license.
What Sigap is and why not filing is fatal
Sigap is the betting management system. Every licensed operator must feed it operating data so the regulator can see the market as it happens.
Without that feed there is no supervision. An operator that does not file is, from the regulator’s point of view, invisible, and an invisible licensed operator is worse than an unlicensed one.
The legal basis is the 2023 betting law and the ministry’s own 2024 rules on operating conditions. The measures are precautionary — they suspend operations while the sanctioning process runs, rather than cancelling licences outright.
One operator is pushing back
Caio Coimbra, a director at Nexus International, which runs megaposta.bet.br, disputes the finding. He says the transmissions did happen and the files were delivered, and that any gaps arose in processing.
ZeroUm Bet, Select Operations, Enseada and RR Participações had not commented publicly at the time of writing.
We have not been able to find the act published in the official gazette or a notice on the ministry’s own site. Everything here comes from the regulatory and Brazilian business press, and we say so rather than implying a primary document we have not seen.
What a suspension is, and is not
These are precautionary measures. They stop the sites taking bets while the regulator’s sanctioning process runs its course.
They are not licence cancellations, and the companies can in principle satisfy the requirements and return.
The distinction matters for anyone holding the paper of a listed operator. A suspension pending compliance is a very different event from a revocation, even though both stop the revenue on the day.
Why this matters outside Brazil
Brazil licensed its betting market at the start of 2025 after years of grey-market operation, and every other large Latin American market is watching how the enforcement goes.
A regulator that suspends licensed operators for filing failures within eighteen months of opening is signalling that the licence is a supervisory relationship, not a permit you buy once.
For anyone with money in the sector, the compliance cost of a Brazilian licence just became a real number rather than a theoretical one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are these illegal betting sites?
No. All fourteen are licensed operators. That is what makes the suspension significant — the regulator is disciplining companies inside the legal market, not blocking pirates.
What did most of them do wrong?
They did not send operating data to Sigap, the system the regulator uses to monitor the market. One company, RR Participações, was suspended over documentation on its ownership instead, and Pixbet was also cited for lacking problem-gambling monitoring.
What is Deolane Bezerra’s connection?
She founded ZeroUm Bet, which operates three of the suspended domains, but transferred ownership in December 2024. She has been in custody since May 2026 on money-laundering suspicion in a separate case and denies wrongdoing.
What happens next?
The suspensions are precautionary and last while the sanctioning process runs. Operating anyway carries a fine of R$200,000, about US$37,000, a day.
Connected Coverage
Sources: Rio Times desk research
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