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Major operators have warned that their platforms are now being blocked in the state of Rio de Janeiro, despite the transitional provisions included in new federal regulations in Brazil.

Betano and Flutter’s Betfair both posted messages on social media on Wednesday and Thursday (July 25) to advise local customers that their sites were “temporarily” inaccessible in at least some parts of Brazil’s third largest state.

Users on X reported that various other prominent betting sites were also either unavailable or had moved to alternative web domains, following the apparent enforcement of a recent federal court order obtained by the Rio state lottery (LOTERJ).

That federal regional court ruling of June 29 called on Brazilian telecoms authority ANATEL to order ISPs to block access to more than 100 prominent betting sites that LOTERJ insists are operating in Rio de Janeiro without a state or federal licence.

Both ANATEL and Brazil’s Attorney General’s Office have appealed the ruling, while Betano and Betfair are among operators that have been able to obtain recent injunctions to protect them from LOTERJ’s enforcement actions.

ANATAL and individual ISPs have stated that web-blocking for a specific state is not technologically feasible in Brazil.

Operators and industry groups, in turn, point to transitional provisions included in a December 2023 federal law and subsequent regulations that expressly grant offshore operators through to the end of this year to obtain a national licence to operate across Brazil, before the implementation from January 1, 2025 of new legal penalties and enforcement actions that will include ISP-blocking on a nationwide basis.

On X, Betfair Brasil advised that its platform was offline in “several areas” of the state of Rio de Janeiro but it expected operations to be “back to normal soon”.

Betano Brasil said the disruption in Rio was a direct result of LOTERJ’s legal actions that had been taken “in disregard to current federal legislation”.

“In view of this, Betano took the appropriate judicial and legal actions, confident that the Judiciary would annul the decision and guarantee the transition period, in compliance with federal regulations,” the company added in a statement also posted to X.

“On July 19, we obtained a preliminary injunction that obliges LOTERJ not to sanction Betano, and we remain optimistic that this issue will be resolved quickly, and lead to the reestablishment of the platform.”

LOTERJ has issued local authorisations to a total of five online betting operators — Pixbet, MarjoSports, Rio Jogos, Apostou and BestBet — since the Rio lottery authority opened a state-level licensing process in May 2023. 

Other companies, including Blaze and the Brazilian company with rights to operate Caesars Sportsbook in the country, have also applied for a Rio licence, but larger international operators are generally waiting to obtain a federal licence that should enable them to operate in all 26 states across Brazil.

The blocking episode in Rio is especially ill-timed in that it comes just a few weeks before a critical application deadline in that federal licensing process. 

Following June’s initial court order in LOTERJ’s favour, Brazil betting industry association IBJR warned that the episode had created “legal insecurity” that could result in the “withdrawal of companies from the Brazilian market and economic harms for the country”.