The Brazilian government has begun closing down several betting sites in the South American country.
Already, more than 2000 betting sites, including those that sponsor popular football team Corinthians and other first-division clubs, have been shut.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government has warned sites that failed to sign up to new regulations due to take effect in January.
The new rules seek to combat fraud and money laundering and protect users, by for example banning minors from betting.
The country is making the moves as part of a push to regulate online gambling.
According to Brazil Finance Minister, Fernando Haddad, the country which is Latin America’s biggest economy is struggling a betting “pandemic,” prompting the government to tighten the screws on the sector.
In 2018, Brazil legalised sports betting sites.
The move led to gambling operating in a regulatory free-for-all, especially as there were virtually no taxes paid.
Asides from betting on Sports, gambling in Brazil has taken a new turn, with gambling on games like Aviator, where players gamble on the flight of a virtual airplane, or the online casino game Fortune Tiger.
On the blacklist is Esportes da Sorte, which sponsors Corinthians, one of Brazil’s most popular football clubs, as well as Athletico Paranaense, Bahia and Gremio de Porto Alegre.
The ministry said the betting sites would be blocked and banned from advertising, and sponsoring football clubs.
More than 200 other sites will be allowed to continue to operate after agreeing to the new rules.
Brazil’s central bank estimates that 24 million out of Brazil’s 212 million inhabitants, roughly one in nine people, gamble online.
Lula warned recently that betting was causing many low-income Brazilians to get into debt.
“Anyone who is not regularised, or in the process of being regularised, is being taken off the air,” Haddad said in a statement.
According to the finance ministry said it had identified 2,040 “suspicious domains” which it had asked the telecoms regulatory agency Anatel to block.
