The Science and Technology Committee (CCT) has approved new measures that could be among the biggest setbacks for licensed betting companies, while also creating more room for illegal platforms to keep expanding. The CCT approved a proposal that tightens restrictions on advertising and sponsorship related to betting.

The plan also sets criteria for classifying products by risk and clarifies the responsibilities of operators and platforms. The committee warned that the illegal market may be able to continue growing because it would not be affected by the new rules. The CCT also approved a request for urgency so the bill can be reviewed by the Senate Plenary.

Authored by Senator Damares Alves and six other senators, Bill 2.470/2026 would amend Brazil’s Betting Law, which regulates fixed-odds betting. The bill is intended to protect mental health, consumers, and the family economy. The measure received a favorable opinion through a substitute presented by Senator Alessandro Vieira.

“This is a non-partisan initiative. It stems from society’s current understanding of the extent of the damage caused by so-called betting,” the rapporteur said.

Before the vote, the CCT held a public hearing on Tuesday to discuss the proposal. Government and betting-sector representatives participated in the debate and presented different positions on the proposed changes. The approved text includes broad restrictions on advertising for online betting and gambling.

It prohibits direct or indirect marketing communication about betting on radio and television, newspapers and magazines, outdoor advertising, streaming services, podcasts, social networks, video platforms, apps, websites, blogs, forums, search engines, and other internet environments.

The restrictions also extend to instant messaging, SMS, email, notifications, algorithm-based targeted advertising, telemarketing, and profiling based on user behavior. The proposal also covers advertising in electronic games and esports, on sports uniforms and equipment, in public transport, and through affiliate content, tipsters, comparison sites, and other paid intermediaries.

The bill further bans promotions and incentives such as bonuses, promotional credits, free bets, cashback, free spins, rewards, and loyalty programmes that are used to encourage membership, retention, or a return to betting. It also prohibits misleading messages that describe betting as risk-free, a source of income, a financial solution, a way to guarantee profit, or a method to recover losses.

Despite the general ban, the restrictions do not apply to strictly institutional communication issued through an authorized operator’s official channels, including its websites, apps, internal platform areas, and customer service channels. In those spaces, information must be limited to company identification, access rules, self-exclusion and blocking mechanisms, and mandatory warnings.

These channels may not contain promises of winnings, bonuses, invitations to bet, encouragement tactics, or any features designed to attract and retain user attention. The bill also places responsibility on operators for what affiliates, agencies, influencers, and other third parties do when they are paid or incentivized to promote betting.

In addition to advertising limits, the proposal would prohibit sponsorship by betting companies of clubs and other sports organizations, federations, leagues, competitions, and sports broadcasts. It would also ban sponsorship of cultural events, shows, educational and social projects, philanthropic entities, civil society organizations, and political parties, candidates, and election campaigns, as well as sponsorship tied to digital influencers, athletes, artists, and celebrities.

The ban would cover brand exposure, naming rights, licensing, ambassadors, and other forms of promotional association. The text includes a 24-month period for adapting or terminating sponsorship contracts, and it states that signing, renewing, or extending sponsorship contracts would only be permitted if the contracts validity ends within that 24-month window.

The bill also prohibits sponsorship activities involving children and adolescents, schools, and youth sports categories. Betting companies would be barred from associating their brand with campaigns or projects related to mental health, suicide prevention, financial education, the treatment of gambling disorders, social assistance, the prevention of over-indebtedness, and the protection of vulnerable families.

The protection measures in the proposal would restrict operators from using personal data from individuals who have self-excluded, are undergoing treatment, or have requested that marketing be blocked in order to try to reactivate them. It would also forbid repeated or intrusive messages and offers directed at users who have reduced how often they gamble, registered significant losses, triggered limits, or displayed signs of risky behavior.

The text also bans exploiting situations such as economic crisis, unemployment, debt, emotional distress, grief, anxiety, depression, loneliness, or other vulnerability conditions to attract, retain, or reactivate gamblers. Operators would be required to maintain permanent mechanisms for age verification, self-exclusion, voluntary time and wagering limits, and information about the user’s own gambling behavior. Self-exclusion would need to be effective across all authorized operators.

The proposal also bans bets placed using credit cards, the use of predictive models to identify times when people may be more vulnerable, and platform design mechanisms that interfere with a conscious decision to stop betting, leave the service, or activate limits and blocks. Operators would also have to maintain ongoing alerts about compulsive gambling, indebtedness, and asset loss, and use verifiable protocols for identifying risky behavior.

The proposal establishes criteria for classifying betting products based on their potential for harm. The characteristics considered include immediate or short-lived results, continuous repetition at short intervals, random mechanisms to determine outcomes, intermittent rewards, near-miss incentives, incentives designed to help users recover losses, and features that make it difficult to stop betting or that encourage successive, impulsive, and increasingly valuable bets.

Products offered to the public would require prior evaluation by a competent body of the Federal Executive Branch, to be defined in regulations. High-risk products would be subject to specific harm-reduction measures, while products considered excessively risky would not be allowed to be offered.

The bill indicates that products with random outcomes, continuous cycles, and variable rewards, such as roulette, slot machines, collision-style games, and simulated virtual sports, would fall into the category with the highest risk. The text also retains obligations for monitoring and institutional cooperation, including the submission of aggregated and anonymized data to competent authorities.

It provides for executive actions to monitor the impacts of betting, train health professionals, update care protocols, and periodically disseminate information on the effects of the activity. Oversight responsibilities would also be imposed on application providers, digital platforms, hosting services, and media intermediaries, requiring them to remove irregular advertisements and campaigns after notification from the competent authority.

The rapporteur’s version adds that the notification must clearly and specifically identify the content considered irregular and ensure the right to a fair hearing and full defense. It also explicitly protects journalistic, academic, parliamentary, artistic, and opinion content.

Operators and companies linked to them would be prohibited from acquiring, licensing, or exploiting rights to sporting events held in Brazil. For administrative penalties, the rapporteur’s version incorporates the new infractions into the existing sanctions structure under Law 14.790 of 2023, which allows fines of up to BRL 2 billion (about $392.8 million).

Finally, the bill introduces new criminal provisions. One major change made by Vieira is the creation of the crime of promoting unauthorized betting operators, punishable by one to five years in prison. The penalty could be increased by one-sixth to two-thirds if the promotion is carried out by a digital influencer, athlete, or well-known person because of their greater ability to reach the public.

The rapporteur also added a rule to prevent immediate movement of professionals between betting companies and the bodies responsible for authorising, classifying, regulating, and overseeing betting. Anyone with a significant connection to an operator or a market representative would be barred for 24 months from assuming certain regulatory functions. A similar quarantine period of the same length would apply for the reverse transition, from the regulatory body to the private sector.