Brazil’s Audit Court to Scrutinise Betting Licence Secrecy

Brazil’s Public Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Federal Court of Accounts (MPTCU) filed a request asking the court to review how the federal government decides which betting companies can operate legally in the country. Deputy prosecutor Lucas Furtado argued, according to Estadão, that the Executive has not been transparent enough in the operator authorisation process.

Fixed-odds betting licences are currently granted by the Ministry of Finance’s Secretariat of Prizes and Betting (SPA), making the ministry the gatekeeper for legal market access. The MPTCU’s request challenges the use of secrecy around authorisation files, specifically data on corporate structures and beneficial owners.

The case has been sent to AudFiscal, the TCU’s Specialised Audit Unit for Budget, Taxation and Fiscal Management. The unit will examine who owns betting companies, who their final beneficiaries are, how the government makes authorisation decisions and whether current procedures give the public enough visibility. The case was assigned to minister Bruno Dantas.

According to documents cited by Estadão, greater transparency is intended to help prevent money laundering, shell company entry into the Brazilian market, hidden ownership, conflicts of interest and participation by people who are banned or under investigation.

The new request lands on top of an existing TCU audit that has already exposed structural weaknesses in how Brazil supervises its betting market. That audit, reported in December 2025 under minister Jhonatan de Jesus, found that SPA has established solid AML rules but cannot enforce them. The unit responsible for monitoring money laundering and financial crime, the CGLD, has just three permanent staff. The SPA’s main data system receives large volumes of daily betting and financial transaction data but still lacks the analytical tools to run AML checks on that information.

The TCU gave the Ministry of Finance 120 days from December 2025 to provide SPA with adequate human, technological and budgetary resources. It also recommended that SPA formalise its inspection routines in operational manuals and require licence applicants to submit evidence of implemented AML controls, not just signed declarations.

That deadline puts the Ministry of Finance under pressure to show progress before AudFiscal begins its separate review of the authorisation process. The two TCU processes now run in parallel: one targeting enforcement capacity, the other targeting the transparency of the licensing gate itself.

For operators currently in the authorisation pipeline, the practical question is how quickly SPA can move from declaratory checks to evidential ones. Companies with clean ownership structures and documented internal controls are better positioned for tighter scrutiny. Operators with complex corporate chains or opaque offshore links may face longer review times if the court pushes the government to raise its due diligence requirements.

💡 TGJ Take

Brazil’s regulated betting market will only be as credible as its licensing process, and right now that process is a black box run by a team of three. The December TCU audit showed that SPA cannot adequately supervise the market it regulates. The MPTCU request adds a second pressure point: not just whether SPA can enforce the rules, but whether anyone outside the ministry can see how licence decisions are made.

For operators waiting on authorisation, the 120-day resourcing deadline is the date to watch. If the Ministry of Finance delivers on staffing and technology, checks will get stricter and slower. If it does not, the TCU has grounds to escalate and operators approved under the current process may face retrospective scrutiny.