Brazil prepares a system to block betting athletes
The tool Brazil's Government is preparing to keep athletes out of online betting rests on a key piece of data: the tax identification number. The idea is to build a database with the CPF of all active and federated athletes, regardless of discipline, and make it available to betting houses so they block those accounts. This was previewed by the secretary of Sports Betting and Economic Development of Sport, Giovanni Rocco, during an event organised by the National Association of Games and Lotteries together with Editora Globo on 14 August.
Rocco, whose area depends on the Ministry of Sports, held that there is an information deficit among the athletes themselves, many of whom are unaware they are banned from betting. That restriction already appears in the law regulating online betting and reaches not only athletes, but also referees, technical staff, regulators and officials. The official also mentioned a broader project: building a Latin American version of the Macolin Convention, the international treaty against the manipulation of sporting results that Brazil joined last year as the first country outside Europe, an initiative advancing slowly because it involves the foreign ministry and the federations, and that already included a meeting with a Conmebol representative.
The new mechanism would add to a universe of restrictions that is already enormous. According to Finance Ministry data, around five million people are barred from betting in Brazil, whether by legal decisions or by self-exclusion on the federal Government's centralised platform. The largest group, some three million, corresponds to beneficiaries of Bolsa Família and the continued benefit, reached by a Supreme Federal Court ruling from late 2024, while 1.2 million self-excluded voluntarily.
To that set are added around 827,000 people blocked for having entered Desenrola, the debt renegotiation programme whose rules prevent access to betting platforms for one year from the signing of the contract. The announcement of the athlete block thus fits into an access-restriction policy the Government has been widening on different fronts, while in parallel the future of the regulated market is debated.
Tags: Giovanni Rocco, Sports bettor blocking, Macolin Convention, Online betting in Brazil