Advertising betting in Brazil today means complying with two sets of rules at the same time. The first is self-regulatory: Annex X of the Brazilian Advertising Self-Regulation Code, issued by CONAR (Brazil's advertising self-regulation council), dedicated to betting advertising and published in December 2023, whose most recent update was approved on August 27, 2026, taking effect 30 days after publication. The second is governmental: SPA/MF Ordinance No. 1.231 of July 31, 2024, issued by the Secretariat of Prizes and Betting of the Ministry of Finance (SPA/MF), which disciplines responsible gaming and operators' communication, advertising, publicity and marketing activities, now amended by SPA/MF Ordinance No. 1.964 of July 3, 2026. The practical difference is decisive: breaching CONAR rules leads to a recommendation to change or pull the ad; breaching the ordinance exposes the operator to an administrative sanctioning proceeding with fines, suspension and even revocation of the authorization.
What SPA/MF Ordinance No. 1.231/2024 prohibits
The ordinance built a catalogue of prohibitions that speaks directly to the practices that dominated the market before regulation. Among the banned communications are those that:
- contain calls to action suggesting immediate conduct, of the bet now variety;
- present betting as an investment, a source of income, a job or a financial solution;
- promise easy or certain winnings or suggest that betting is a way to pay off debt;
- are placed in medical, psychological or educational environments;
- disguise commercial content as opinion, entertainment or editorial information, the so-called covert advertising.
Audiences under 18
Child and adolescent protection is the strictest area. Advertising aimed at children and teenagers is prohibited, as is placement in media whose majority audience is under 18, the use of images, characters or elements that appeal to that audience, and the association of betting with youth cultural activities. Minors also may not be sponsored by operators. These restrictions were brought forward by SPA/MF Ordinance No. 1.902 of December 5, 2024, which gave them immediate effect in December 2024, without waiting for the January 1, 2025 milestone.
Mandatory messages and the new 2026 warnings
Ordinance No. 1.231/2024 already required warning clauses with a minimum size of 10% of the advertisement and delivery in both spoken and written form where the medium allowed. SPA/MF Ordinance No. 1.964/2026, published in the Official Gazette on July 10, 2026, standardized the content of those warnings, incorporating mandatory phrases from the Ministry of Finance, among them Ministério da Fazenda adverte: Apostar pode causar dependência (the Ministry of Finance warns: betting can cause addiction), plus alerts about financial losses and about the fact that betting is not an investment. The rule requires horizontal, clear and legible presentation occupying at least 10% of the length or size of the advertisement, effective as of July 17, 2026.
That same month, Interministerial Ordinance MF/SECOM/MJSP No. 73 of July 10, 2026 came into force, covering advertising, communication, marketing and the offering of fixed-odds betting. Its most relevant practical effect for agencies and media outlets is the duty of prior verification that the advertiser is an authorized operator, and the monitoring of compliance by bodies of the National Consumer Protection System in cooperation with the SPA/MF. Advertising for an unauthorized operator is no longer the advertiser's problem alone.
Influencers and affiliates: risk that comes back to the operator
Ordinance No. 1.231/2024 defines an affiliate as anyone who promotes betting for compensation, financial or otherwise, tied to results. And then it makes the move that changes the game: it renders the operator jointly liable for the advertisements published by its affiliates, and requires those contracts to be available to the SPA/MF. In practice, the operator answers for content it did not produce, published by an account it does not control.
The update to CONAR's Annex X approved on August 27, 2026 moves in the same direction, encouraging routine systems for monitoring advertisements and the creation of an accreditation program to train influencers and affiliates on legal and ethical standards. The update also tightened protection of minors, banning content with child appeal such as humanized animals, and restricting participation in advertisements to people who are and appear to be over 21, while giving greater prominence to warnings about age restrictions and the risks of the activity.
A company that signs up a thousand affiliates with no compliance clause, no prior approval of creative and no audit trail does not have a marketing program: it has a distributed liability.
Sports sponsorship
Sports sponsorship remains permitted, but now demands careful reading. The most sensitive limits involve associating a betting brand with youth teams and youth audiences, using athletes and properties that speak mainly to people under 18, and displaying material without the mandatory warnings. Naming rights agreements, shirt sponsorships and in-stadium activations need to be reviewed under both layers of rules, with clauses defining who answers for the compliance of each piece and how irregular content is taken down quickly. It is also worth mapping, asset by asset, what travels beyond the stadium through broadcasting and social media, because material approved for one context easily reaches an audience and a rule that were never considered when it was signed off. In sponsorship, compliance is less about banning the category and more about being able to show, at any moment, who approved what and under which version of the rules.
Enforcement risk and the role of marketing compliance
The risk has three fronts. The first is administrative, driven by the SPA/MF under the sanctioning regime of SPA/MF Ordinance No. 1.233 of July 31, 2024, which provides for heavier penalties where the infraction involves a bet placed by someone under 18. The second is consumer protection, with action by consumer agencies and by the Public Prosecutor's Office over misleading and abusive advertising. The third is reputational, materialized in complaints filed with CONAR and in decisions ordering a campaign to be pulled, often at the peak of media investment.
Marketing compliance that actually works tends to have five components:
- Prior legal approval of the campaign, the creative and the script, with a checklist of prohibitions and mandatory warnings.
- A standard affiliate and influencer agreement with compliance obligations, audit rights, prior content approval and contractual penalties.
- Active monitoring of accounts, creatives and programmatic media, with evidence on record.
- A rapid response plan to pull irregular content within a short window, with a named owner.
- Periodic training for marketing teams, agencies and partners on the rules in force.
What to do now
For operators, the priority is to audit the inventory of live creative against the warnings required since July 17, 2026 and to review the affiliate base. For agencies and media outlets, the priority is prior verification of the advertiser's authorization and the adaptation of formats that cannot easily carry a warning covering 10% of the ad. For clubs and rights holders, the priority is reviewing sponsorship agreements and activations aimed at young audiences.
How our firm can help
Oliveira & Jacobovitz advises operators, agencies, media outlets and sports rights holders on aligning their communication with SPA/MF and CONAR rules: review of campaigns and creative, drafting of affiliate and influencer agreements with compliance clauses, design of legal approval workflows for creative, analysis of sports sponsorship agreements and defense in CONAR complaints and administrative sanctioning proceedings. Every situation is analyzed individually, with no promise of outcome, focused on keeping the campaign live and lawful.
