Regulatory
Licensing, compliance, and regulator activity worldwide.
Thousands of PHP50 payments after midnight to businesses that on paper were beauty parlours and corner shops turned out to be bets. The BSP has shut the merchant accounts and drafted rules that put the burden on GCash, Maya and their aggregators to know who they are paying. PAGCOR's chairman: "Unfortunately, we don't have control over that."
The 2021 licences expire at the end of this month. Bet365, TOTO, Holland Casino, Kansino, FairPlay, Bingoal, GGPoker and Betcity have theirs to 2031. New in the renewal test: every violation definitively established in five years, what the operator did about it, and "additional points of attention" for some. The rest of the market has under two weeks.
UOL reports the provisional measure would ban online games outright and restrict sports betting, with insiders treating it as "close to the extinction" of online casino. Clubs put R$1bn of sponsorship at risk and are drafting a note calling it electioneering; operators are weighing a court challenge; two associations have published open letters. The president says new measures come "soon".
In a WhatsApp exchange from October 2024 found on the phone of a former Federal Police clerk, the Banco Master owner is described as the "boss" who owns the bookmaker and a quarter of Atlético Mineiro. The messages are now part of the Compliance Zero inquiry. Vorcaro's lawyers will not comment; Pixbet says he has never held a stake.
The Gaming Commission's annual report shows a market growing on the players it already has and struggling to recruit new ones since the age limit rose to 21. Self-exclusions are up, land-based visits are down a quarter, and the operators' association says 28% of 18 to 30-year-olds have already gambled on an illegal site.
A University of Toronto and ICES study of 14 years of hospital records finds visits 154% above the expected level among males aged 10 to 29 and 116% above among men aged 30 to 44, with no change in females. The authors call it a caution for Alberta and every province considering private online operators.
Preston Banks says he spent three years tracking an "Argentina Scheme" of up to 150 patrons on unverified funds, that executives called the behaviour "cultural", and that he was dismissed 27 days after his final report while the casino banned 28 of the patrons and chased $12 million in unpaid credit. Resorts World calls the suit frivolous.
Two days after calling betting "a disease", the president told a podcast there is "no good bet and bad bet" and that his campaign is weighing measures before the election. The licensed operators' association says the cases he cites predate regulation, and warns of a "paradox" in which a ban pushes the vulnerable into the illegal market.
Cambodia's prime minister says some licensed casinos "operate from a single shophouse" and contribute little to the economy. The order lands as the regulator drafts renewal criteria and a month before the October deadline to close the online loopholes it found in 195 inspections, 72 of which ended in closure.
Fourteen months after the "Big Beautiful Bill" cut deductible losses to 90%, the Ways and Means Committee has attached the fix to a crypto tax bill and sent it to the floor. It still needs the House, the Senate and the President before 1 January, and the House is about to leave town.
Bookmakers are not licensed in Uruguay, so when a visiting Brazilian side plays in Montevideo with a betting sponsor on its shirt, the state fines CONMEBOL, CONMEBOL passes it to the AUF, and the AUF passes it to the home club. With the Copa Libertadores final at the Centenario on 28 November, President Orsi calls that "a kind of absurdity". He also says the law will not change.
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.