ANJL Warns Online Casino Ban Could Double Brazil’s Illegal Gambling Market
The industry association projects that restricting licensed online casino games could push the illegal market’s share from 41% to as high as 82%.
Brazil’s National Association of Games and Lotteries (ANJL) has warned that a potential ban on online casino games at licensed betting platforms could significantly increase the country’s illegal gambling market.
A technical study produced by the association projects that the illegal sector’s estimated 41% market share could rise to between 78% and 82% if licensed operators are prevented from offering online casino games.
The 82% figure represents ANJL’s highest-migration scenario and is a projection rather than an observed market share or government forecast. It would nevertheless represent a doubling of the association’s estimated current illegal share.
Brazil has not introduced such a ban. The federal government is considering further restrictions on the regulated betting sector, but Finance Minister Dario Durigan said last week that no final decision had been taken.
ANJL Identifies 6,409 Accessible Illegal Betting Domains
Alongside its projections, ANJL published findings from its monitoring of unauthorised gambling websites.
Its technical team identified 6,409 illegal betting domains that remained responsive and accessible during monitoring conducted between 11 and 18 September.
Separate monitoring between June and August identified an average of 13.7 new unauthorised betting domains appearing each day without approval from the Ministry of Finance.
ANJL said 55.8% of offshore sites identified in its research used distribution networks that concealed their original hosting location, while 98.3% of the domains did not use Brazil’s “.br” domain.
The association argues that these figures demonstrate the scale and accessibility of the unlicensed market despite the introduction of Brazil’s regulated federal betting framework.
SPA data previously reported in Brazil indicated that 25.2 million people placed online bets during 2025.
Illegal Market Share Could Reach 82%, Association Claims
ANJL’s modelling assumes that removing online casino games from licensed operators would not eliminate consumer demand for those products, with varying proportions instead migrating to unauthorised platforms.
Under its scenarios, the illegal sector could account for between 78% and 82% of the market following a prohibition.
The 41% starting point is broadly consistent with separate research from LCA Consultores and the Brazilian Institute of Responsible Gaming (IBJR), which estimated that unlicensed operators represented between 38% and 44% of Brazil’s betting market during the first half of 2026.
However, the two sets of figures measure different scenarios. The earlier research estimated the existing market, while ANJL’s 78% to 82% figures model what could happen following restrictions on licensed online casino products.
Plínio Lemos Jorge, President of ANJL, argued that consumers who continued playing casino games would be exposed to platforms without the safeguards required of licensed Brazilian operators.
“We will have millions of people who will not stop gambling. They will simply start accessing these sites, which do not collect a single tax,” he said.
“The most vulnerable social strata, which are precisely those that the federal government wants to protect, become even more unprotected.”
ANJL Projects Up To R$7.4 Billion In Lost Tax Revenue
The association also estimates that prohibiting online casino games at licensed operators could reduce Brazilian tax revenue by between R$3.6 billion and R$7.4 billion annually.
Those figures are also projections produced by ANJL and depend on assumptions about how consumers would respond to restrictions.
The warning comes amid continued debate over the future of Brazil’s recently regulated gambling market. Reports have suggested that the government has considered removing online casino games while retaining regulated sports betting and associated sports sponsorships.
No such measure has yet been adopted, and its eventual scope remains uncertain.
ANJL maintains that stronger enforcement against illegal operators, rather than reducing the range of products available through authorised platforms, would provide greater consumer protection while preserving tax revenue within Brazil’s regulated system.
