A decree signed by President Lula on June 19 lets Brazil’s gambling regulator order banks to freeze the accounts of unlicensed betting operators within 24 hours – and, after due process, seize the money for an anti-crime fund – shifting enforcement from blocking websites to choking the financial rails beneath them.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed Decree No. 13,033 on June 19, published in an extra edition of the official gazette, creating a formal route for Brazil to freeze the bank funds of fixed-odds betting operators that work without a license – and, after a legal process, to seize that money for the state. It pushes enforcement past the web-blocking Brazil has relied on so far, aiming instead at the payment rails that keep unlicensed books running.
A companion measure published a day earlier, Portaria No. 1,766/2026, makes banks, fintechs and payment firms jointly liable for the taxes owed by the illegal operators whose money they move: if an institution keeps processing for an unlicensed book, the federal tax authority and the SPA can pursue it directly. Together, Durigan said, the measures are designed to stop the financial system from sheltering illegal bets.
Each freeze still has to survive an administrative process and a court step before anything is seized, and the CMN has yet to publish the operational rules banks will follow. The test now is how quickly the first notices go out – and whether choking the rails does what years of blocking domains could not.
