The event brought together authorities, operator representatives, and specialists to discuss the advances and challenges of Brazil’s gambling regulation, with a focus on Anti-Money Laundering (AML) prevention and Responsible Gaming.
“Many times, the image that people have is of the illegal market,” noted Plínio Lemos Jorge, President of the National Association of Games and Lotteries (ANJL).
The executive highlighted the robust regulation introduced by Ordinance No. 1,143, which represented a watershed for both the sector and society, and detailed the increasing dialogue with the banking sector, which in the past had expressed opposition to 'Bets'.
“We have been able to engage with institutions such as Febraban, showing that the regulated sector is different and generates jobs. We are conducting research to measure this impact clearly and responsibly,” emphasized Lemos.
The panel also included Vitor Marques, Compliance and AML Manager at BetMGM, and Fred Justo, former General Coordinator of AML Monitoring at the Secretariat of Prizes and Betting and now Director at Legitimuz. The discussion was moderated by Mila Rabelo, Compliance Director at Paag.
The debate also stressed the need to strengthen safe gaming practices. Fred Justo commented: “Pass-through and ‘straw man’ accounts remain risk points in the sector. We must reinforce identification mechanisms such as facial recognition and financial behavior analysis.”
He also noted that irresponsible gambling could be a greater challenge than the illegal market: “USP research shows that 20% of the Brazilian population already places bets. We need to care for these people, protect the vulnerable, and change society’s perception of the industry. Education is our biggest bottleneck today.”
Paag’s compliance director emphasized that one of the main challenges in AML prevention is improving data-sharing synergy among betting operators to map suspicious behavior. She explained that tackling the issue requires a proper KYC system to identify, classify, and qualify customers internally.
“First, is the customer opening the account really who they claim to be? Here we focus on ownership verification and fraud prevention. Then, once I know the bettor is who they say they are, what is their financial capacity? Where do they live? What is their profession? This allows us to classify them and then assess their internal risk. If they are betting too much, that may be an alert.”
“I will only know if they are betting excessively by comparing it to their financial capacity. That’s why proper KYC and onboarding are necessary, so we can effectively monitor and create meaningful alerts.”
She continued: “Then comes the report to Coaf. We must handle this with qualified discrimination of facts and clear communication that adds value for Coaf and enables effective investigations. There are many pain points and challenges, and Paag is here to help address them.”
Finally, she underlined the strong AML foundations already present in the industry, including Paag’s own solutions: “At Paag, we have built a KYC structure and effective monitoring. In our system, reports to Coaf are already qualified with parameters that meet the agency’s requirements. The results depend on Coaf’s investigation, but we process suspicions and direct them to the legitimate authority. Within our products, our KYC and AML structures meet 100% of the requirements, ensuring legitimacy and effective reporting to Coaf.”
Event highlights
For João Fraga, CEO of Paag, PLDay plays a vital role in advancing the industry: “An event like this is essential to promote open dialogue among all stakeholders in the betting industry. By bringing together authorities, operators, and compliance experts, we can advance in building safer and more responsible practices that strengthen the market and increase society’s trust in this growing sector.”
He also stressed the importance of convergence of different perspectives: “Fred brought the experience of someone who participated in drafting the regulation, ANJL represents various operators and has a broad market view, and we had international operators sharing best practices from abroad.”
“Seeing this focus on regulatory compliance is a great sign for the sector and for Brazil. Today, it is clear that there are healthy operations concerned with compliance and with society’s well-being.”
The executive concluded by reinforcing that cooperation between private companies, regulatory entities, and government authorities is essential to accelerate the adoption of innovative solutions that combine technology, security, and responsibility.
Source: GMB
