Brazil's Justice Ministry Asks for 348 Betting Influencer Profiles to Come Down

The ministry says the Instagram accounts it wants removed have more than 150 million followers between them, and its count of betting sites and channels has passed 60,000. With no licensed sportsbook left in Brazil, every account promoting a betting brand is now promoting an illegal one.

• Brazil's Ministry of Justice and Public Security (MJSP) said on 9 November that it had asked for 348 Instagram profiles used to promote illegal betting to be taken down, one of them with 1.4 million followers
• The profiles were identified in a survey updated on 9 November by two national secretariats, for digital rights and for public security, through the Cyber Operations Laboratory
• The ministry says its monitoring has counted more than 60,000 sites, pages, profiles, groups and servers since 25 September, against 20,318 on 9 October
• The release does not say which company received the request, how many profiles have come down, or which procedure was used
• The offensive rests on Provisional Measure 1.394, which banned betting and its advertising and which Justice Luiz Fux has now shielded from lower court challenges

The Ministry Turns From Sites to the Accounts That Promote Them

The MJSP announced the request on the evening of Monday 9 November. It says a survey updated that day identified 348 Instagram profiles used to promote illegal bets, with more than 150 million followers combined. The work is run by the National Secretariat of Digital Rights (Sedigi) and the National Secretariat of Public Security (Senasp), through the Cyber Operations Laboratory (Ciberlab), which monitors sites, social networks and messaging apps.

The same day's sweep, the ministry says, also found 2,207 Facebook pages with a combined audience of 7.5 million, 18 Telegram groups with about 182,000 participants, and 998 sites. The release names no influencer and no operator. It says the takedown was requested; it does not say of whom, or how many accounts have been removed. CNN Brasil, which reported the figures the same night, said it was trying to reach the platforms.

Justice Minister Wellington César Lima e Silva said it was "not enough to take illegal betting sites offline if these platforms keep reaching the population through influencers and social networks", according to the release (translated from Portuguese). Victor Fernandes, the national secretary of digital rights, said the ministry's work "cannot be limited to betting sites". National Public Security Secretary Chico Lucas listed the consequences as indebtedness, gambling dependency and "entire families compromising their income".

The Count Has Tripled in a Month

Since 25 September, the ministry says, its monitoring has recorded more than 60,000 sites, pages, profiles, groups and servers. They include 51,611 sites; 6,596 Facebook pages with 34 million members and followers; more than 900 Instagram profiles; 1,442 Telegram groups with 25.6 million participants; and 127 TikTok profiles with 469,000 followers. On 9 October the total stood at 20,318.

The figures are for identification, not removal. When the MJSP and the Finance Ministry reported their first four days of enforcement on 29 September, they had requested 5,209 domain takedowns, the telecoms regulator Anatel had ordered 2,387 blocked, and 90 Instagram profiles had been removed. The new release gives no comparable figure for blocks or removals.

The ministry ties the offensive to Provisional Measure 1.394 of 25 September, which, it says, prohibited the operation, offer, intermediation and advertising of bets in Brazil. Complaints can be filed through Fala.BR, the federal government's complaints platform.

"Illegal" Now Covers the Whole Market

In September the operators' association ANJL asked TikTok, X, Google and Meta to act on influencers promoting operators without a Finance Ministry authorisation. That line no longer exists. Licences fell on 25 October, and since CDA Gaming took Casa de Apostas offline on 9 November no licensed operator is trading. On the ministry's reading of the measure, an account promoting a formerly licensed brand is in the same position as one promoting an offshore site, and the ministry's numbers do not separate them.

A Request Is Not a Removal

The headline figure is a demand, and the cumulative total counts what the ministry has found, not what has gone. In September the ministry could report 90 Instagram profiles removed; it now reports more than 900 identified without saying how many survive. A monitor whose count rises from about 20,000 to more than 60,000 in a month is measuring its own reach as much as the market, and offers no proof that blocking has slowed promotion. The 150 million follower figure is a simple sum, so one follower of several accounts is counted several times.

The Legal Footing Has an Expiry Date

The offensive rests on a provisional measure that Congress has not yet begun to examine. Its joint committee was still awaiting installation in early November, and BNLData calculates that the measure lapses on 4 March 2027 if not voted. Fux's 8 November order has removed the lower courts as a route to challenge it, but not the congressional clock.

Brazil is now going after the promoters as well as the sites, which is where the reach lies. Until it publishes removals rather than identifications, the scale of the effect remains the ministry's claim.