Neymar and Vinícius Júnior Given Ten Days to Justify Their Betting Contracts

A consumer-protection body in Espírito Santo has served nine celebrities with a 58-page recommendation to reassess their bookmaker deals, citing a R$38.8 billion social cost and a survey in which 57% said celebrities influenced them to bet. It declares nothing illegal, and says that is the point.

• The Centro Integrado de Defesa do Consumidor do Espírito Santo (Cindec), made up of the state prosecutor's office, public defender, Procon-ES, the state attorney general and the civil police, sent a preventive recommendation to Neymar Jr on Monday, 14 September, according to the public defender's statement
• Vinícius Júnior, Ronaldo, Galvão Bueno, Adriane Galisteu, Léo Santana, Luciano Huck, Vanderlei Luxemburgo and Casimiro Miguel are also being notified, with regional influencers to follow
• The recipients have ten working days to say whether they will keep their advertising, promotion, affiliation or sponsorship contracts with betting platforms, and if so to show the campaigns comply with the Consumer Defence Code and SPA ordinance 1,231/2024
• Recommendation 01/2026 cites an IEPS estimate of R$38.8 billion a year in social costs from gambling, R$30.6 billion of it health-related, and a survey finding 66.8% of sports betting site users showed risky or problem behaviour
• The document is "preventive and informative" and does not declare any campaign illegal, but says continued advertising after formal notice "may be considered" in any later administrative or judicial proceeding

A State Body Goes After the Faces, Not the Operators

The Integrated Consumer Defence Centre of Espírito Santo (Cindec) has begun what it calls a preventive action on fixed-odds betting advertising and the role of celebrities and influencers who lend their credibility to betting platforms, the state public defender's office (DPES) said in a statement. Cindec brings together the state prosecutor's office (MPES), the DPES, Procon-ES, the state attorney general's office and the civil police, and the recommendation is signed by a representative of each, BNLData reports.

The first recipient was Neymar Jr, who was formally notified on Monday of the social, economic and public-health impacts the body associates with online betting, and recommended to reassess any advertising, promotion, affiliation or sponsorship contracts with companies in the sector. Vinícius Júnior, Ronaldo, the broadcaster Galvão Bueno, the presenters Adriane Galisteu and Luciano Huck, the singer Léo Santana, the coach Vanderlei Luxemburgo and the streamer Casimiro Miguel are also being notified, the DPES said, and the initiative is to extend to content creators and influencers of regional and local reach. BNLData notes that Neymar is a global ambassador for Blaze, that Vinícius Júnior is the lead face of Betnacional, which also sponsors Galvão Bueno, and that Ronaldo's partnership with Betfair ended in late 2024. Neymar's representatives told BNLData he "had not been informed and is unaware of the procedure"; the others had not commented.

Recommendation Cindec 01/2026, which the DPES puts at 58 pages and BNLData at 63, assembles research and economic data to argue that betting's effects "have gone beyond the field of entertainment". It cites an estimate from the Instituto de Estudos para Políticas de Saúde (IEPS) of a social cost of approximately R$38.8 billion a year associated with betting and gambling in Brazil, R$30.6 billion of it health costs, and a survey used by IEPS in which 66.8% of sports betting site users showed behaviour classified as risky or problematic, rising to 55.2% among adolescents who had bet in the last year. On influence, it cites a Procon-SP survey in which 57% of respondents said celebrities had influenced them in relation to betting, and a More in Common and Ipsos-Ipec poll in which 51% of Brazilians had a negative view of personalities who promote betting.

What the Notified Have to Do

The recommendation asks the personalities to evaluate their contracts against the operators' responsible-gambling policies, the Consumer Defence Code and SPA/MF ordinance 1,231/2024, the finance ministry's advertising rules. According to BNLData, it recommends suspension or termination where the platform does not supply requested information, pays the promoter on the basis of bettors' losses, reaches vulnerable audiences or lacks problem-gambling prevention mechanisms, and says a contract should only be kept if the operator formally proves its regularity and the effectiveness of its consumer protections. Recipients have ten working days from receipt to say whether the contracts will continue and, if so, to demonstrate that the campaigns comply with the law.

"When a well-known personality associates their image with a betting platform, that message can reach millions of people and carry far more weight in the decision of whoever is on the other side," said Vitor Valdir Ramalho Soares, the DPES coordinator for consumer rights. Prosecutor Sandra Lengruber da Silva called it "a preventive action" aimed at "more responsible advertising before it becomes necessary to discuss the damage only after it has occurred". Procon-ES director-general Letícia Coelho said the body "will be attentive to betting campaigns" and would act on misleading or abusive advertising. The document names Felipe Neto, Cauã Reymond, Anitta and Padre Fábio de Melo as personalities who had promoted bookmakers and later regretted it.

The Target Is the Endorsement Contract, Because the Ad Rules Already Exist

Brazil's federal advertising ordinance already governs what a betting campaign may say and where it may run; the ANJL's demand to the platforms this week and last year's order to Meta both work within it. Cindec has chosen a different lever: the person whose face is on the campaign, and the contract that put it there. A recommendation that a celebrity "reassess" a deal has no legal force, but a formal record that Neymar was told the risks and kept the contract anyway is exactly the document a future consumer claim would want. The body has said as much, and it is the most sophisticated part of an otherwise soft instrument.

A State Consumer Body Is Reaching for a National Question

Espírito Santo is one of 26 states, and a Vitória prosecutor cannot regulate a national advertising market or a footballer in Madrid. What it can do is create a precedent that other state consumer bodies copy, and the recommendation's explicit plan to extend to regional influencers suggests that is the design. The federal regulator has the advertising rules; the states have consumer law and the standing to use it; and the 2026 campaign has made betting a subject on which no public body wants to look passive. Nine famous names in one notification is a way of making sure nobody misses the first one.

The Numbers Are Contestable, and the Body Has Said They Are a Basis, Not a Finding

A 66.8% problem-behaviour rate among betting-site users is a striking figure and a survey-dependent one, and R$38.8 billion is a modelled social cost from a policy institute, not an audited number. Cindec has been careful to call its document preventive and informative and to declare no campaign illegal, which is the correct posture for evidence of this kind. The licensed operators whose ambassadors have been notified will note that the recommendation does not distinguish between them and the unlicensed sites the ANJL says take 38% to 44% of the market, and that is the gap they will argue in any reply.

Nine celebrities have ten working days to say whether the money is worth it. The answer will be read by every other state in Brazil.