Make it legal: new iGaming laws in Brazil as a reason to get involved in this geographical zone right now

January 30, 2025 | Article

Tier-3 is steadily breaking into iGaming trends: first India, followed by Latam, are entering the top gambling regions. On the one hand, this is facilitated by an unlimited target audience, and on the other hand, by cheap clicks and excellent conversion rates. It seems that the confidence of the affiliate in the choice remained very little: to have clear laws on gambling, not preventing the drive of traffic. The Alanbase team presents Brazil as a new legal geo for gambling affiliates. Let’s go!

Traditions

The huge property division in the country has never prevented wealthy Brazilians from spending money on roulette: back in the colonial era, Rio de Janeiro’s luxurious gambling halls attracted wealthy travelers from all over the world. The casino boomed in a legal way, until the irreparable event happened: in 1941, the authorities issued a bill that completely banned gambling.

In the new rules there were no restrictions on the traditional Brazilian game of bingo, poker, horse racing and lotteries. The latter in the late sixties and were held at the state level, but only the classic casino games were still under a total ban and moved into the gray zone, periodically providing newspapers with loud headlines about the smashing of underground halls.

History turned back in 1991: the first bill on the legalization of gambling was submitted for discussion. It was not destined to become a reality, but the process went on: since 2018, betting has been legalized in Brazil, which has already brought multi-million dollar profits to the budget. And less than a year ago, the market received the news that had been awaited all this time, but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.   

The market that has outgrown the laws

It is impossible to determine the exact figures of the market, because for a long time local brands operated illegally and did not open statistics to the general public. Nevertheless, according to major auditor KPMG, this value has approached 1.9 billion dollars by the beginning of 2024 and may grow by 19% in two years.

Every fifth user of iGaming products in the world is a Brazilian. And the rapid development of the economy and uneven but steady growth of the standard of living indicate that in the land of carnivals will spend more and more money on gambling: right now ARPU per player is $840 annually, and this number will continue to grow.

Pros and cons: the two heads of lobbyism

As it happens, two powerful groups of lobbyists have formed in Brazil, the first of which for many years tried to legalize gambling practice. They had quite reasonable reasons – first of all, a serious replenishment of the budget, which loses tax revenues, while the game is still going on. Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake, and it is also a lot of new jobs, opportunities for the creation of which have long appeared.

The group of supporters of the new law was quite diverse: serious deputies in jackets and ties, owners of white brands, bloggers and ordinary players. They were counterbalanced by conservatives with ties to the local Catholic Church: religious values have not gone anywhere and still enjoy strong support. Moreover, underground iGaming-brands may well have been involved in sponsoring the prohibitionist positions: when the gray market is formed, its leaders do not need a new round of competition in the legal field.

For a long time opponents of legalization were winning, and at the end of last year, it seemed that they were even able to abolish the regulation of gambling in the legislation, leaving only betting in the white zone. And yet it was accomplished: in December 2023, the Parliament decided that gambling businesses will be able to operate legally.

Finally accepted

On December 30, Law No. 14790 saw the light of day. Without going into too much detail, let us highlight the key points:

• Roulette, slots and all popular card games are now legal.
• Crash games are approved provided they are Games of Luck, i.e. games with random results.
• The minimum RTP of each game (average return of the bet amount to the player) must be at least 85%.
• There remains a ban on deposits via cryptocurrencies and credit cards.
• The betting tax is levied annually and is considered to be 18% of the net profit.

According to some experts, the government’s desire to bring the budget deficit down to zero played a crucial role in approving the law: hundreds of millions of dollars were to come in and are already flowing into the state’s balance sheet from white brand taxes. That’s an impressive result, but how hard is it to register a legal casino right now?

Regulation in action

At the moment the legalization of iGaming-brands is managed by the Ministry of Finance of the country, which created the Secretaria de Prêmios e Apostas (SPA) – the so-called Secretariat of Prizes and Bets, which carries out all supervisory functions on the market. To start the licensing process, operators need to make an initial payment of 30 million Brazilian reais and it is mandatory to own a subsidiary with a Brazilian shareholder who will own at least 20% of its shares. This license will be valid for 5 years and will allow the promotion of up to three brands at the same time.

Of course, operators get a number of standard obligations on top of that, including setting the age of 18 and above, creating opportunities for self-restriction of players, KYC and AML, as well as informing users in detail about their rights and obligations. According to the SPA, these requests have not deterred businesses: more than 140 companies have applied to the Ministry of Finance, wanting to register legal brands, and by the 2025th year, a final list of casinos will be formed following the introduction of new regulations.

All prospects are ahead

This year has been revolutionary for the iGaming sphere in Brazil and marks a transitional era: strict regulation of gray brands, including all kinds of restrictions on advertising and fines, should help white casinos to come to the forefront. The current year alone is projected to see a $275 million increase in the budget due to the influx of tax revenues. At the same time, the market appears to continue to grow by about 15% annually, which means that the state will remain interested in further development of gambling regulations.

The average age of a player in Brazil is lower than in most Tier-1 and Tier-2 countries, and the country’s internet coverage exceeds 86% and is growing continuously. Combined with a hot mentality and a long gambling tradition, this makes for excellent prospects for traffic arbitrage and pouring into gambling-offers in Brazil: act now to be the first in a new and truly huge market!

And of course, when entering this market, you need a quality platform for creating an affiliate program and tracking affiliate traffic. Alanbase can become such a platform for you, because we have all the key functions available in one window: affiliate management, affiliates, providers, analytics and payments.   

To see how Alanbase works and test all its functions, leave a request for a demo call with a manager. Immediately after you will get access to a trial period on the platform for 14 days with full functionality and without the need to link a credit card.