Fraudsters in Brazil get creative with self-exclusion exploit

Operators in Brazil report that opportunistic bettors are trying to exploit a loophole in the country’s national self-exclusion scheme.

Media outlet BNLData has received warnings from local gambling firms about players who are trying to defraud businesses by placing bets within the period between making a self-exclusion request and the operator fulfilling said request.

Brazil officially ratified its licensed betting market in January 2025, bringing millions of bettors into a regulated system that will feed back into the national economy. Overseen by the Secretariat of Prizes and Bets (SPA) under the Ministry of Finance, experts predict that the market will reach billions in value by the end of the decade.

Self-exclusion was one of the final steps in the legislative process, introduced in December last year. In the first 20 days of its inception, the registry saw 153,000 requests from players, BNLData added.

Championed by SPA Secretary Regis Dudena, the system works by receiving the self-exclusion request and automatically notifying operators about it, giving them a 72-hour period to go through with the blocking order.

This exact timeframe is being targeted by the bettors, who are wagering high sums which they then want back under the premise that they shouldn’t have been allowed on the platform in the first place.

Their success rate, however, remains a topic of speculation, as no operator has publicly confirmed any payouts made as a result of this fraud.

To put things into perspective, one case reported by BNLData involved a modest bettor, with their losses between 2024 and 2025 totalling around R$500 (£70). 

On 2 January, the same player filed a self-exclusion request with SPA. Right after that, their activity showed multiple bets totalling R$5000 being placed with different sportsbook platforms, covering all outcomes of the same sports events.

They then tried to recover the accumulated losses by contacting the sportsbook providers, arguing that they’ve breached the law by allowing them to place a wager with a self-exclusion order in place. However, this is where details matter the most.

Operators would have been committing an offence if the self-exclusion was active, but bets and wagers are still considered valid if placed within the above-mentioned 72-hour period. 

In addition, this appears to not be an isolated case, with multiple companies reporting the same pattern, pointing towards systematic fraud attempts.

Whilst this is unlikely to cause major damage to the gambling sector in Brazil, it could lead to SPA reevaluating the self-exclusion framework and introducing shorter enforcement timeframes.