Crypto betting in Brazil after the ban

Since 25 September 2026, nobody may legally offer fixed-odds betting in Brazil — not the licensed .bet.br operators, not offshore sites, not crypto sportsbooks. Medida Provisória 1.394 shut the whole market: licensed sites went offline on 6 October 2026, Pix to any betting operator is blocked, and the list of blocked addresses keeps growing. Crypto platforms were never inside the licensed system to begin with. What still separates one from another is a single question: does the platform hold your money, or do you? Under a full ban, that answer decides what can happen to it.

What changed on 25 September 2026

Medida Provisória nº 1.394 of 25 September 2026 banned the operation, offer and advertising of fixed-odds betting across Brazil — sports betting and online casino alike, whether federally licensed, state-run or offshore.

It is not settled. The operator associations ANJL and IBJR, together with 16 clubs, have asked STF Justice Luiz Fux to suspend the MP; as of 7 October 2026 there was no decision. An MP has the force of law from the day it is published, but Congress has 60 days, extendable by another 60, to vote it into law or let it lapse. Check the date on anything you read about this, this page included.

Crypto was outside the licensed market even before

Brazil spent 2024 and 2025 building a licensed market under Law 14.790/2023. The SPA — Secretaria de Prêmios e Apostas, part of the Finance Ministry — issued federal authorisations, and licensed operators ran on .bet.br domains. On the SPA’s list of 1 October 2026, days before the shutdown, there were 85 authorisations covering 188 brands.

Crypto never fitted that system. SPA/MF Ordinance 615/2024 allowed deposits only by Pix, TED and debit or prepaid cards, required accounts at institutions authorised by the Banco Central, and banned crypto-assets outright. Every crypto sportsbook a Brazilian could reach was therefore already offshore and unlicensed. The ban did not push crypto out of the legal market. It removed the legal market that crypto was standing next to.

How the ban is enforced

Every measure targets operators, and offshore and crypto sites are hit the same way as the former licensees.

• Domains are blocked. The Finance Ministry orders the block and Anatel passes it to internet providers. Since October 2024 more than 80,000 addresses have been blocked — over 25,000 in 2025 and over 57,000 in the first nine months of 2026. Those are addresses, not operators: one site can go through many mirrors, and a page that loads today may not load tomorrow.
• Payments are blocked. Law 14.790 (article 21) and SPA/MF Ordinance 566/2025 already barred payment institutions from serving unlicensed operators. MP 1.394 and Banco Central Resolutions 595, 596 and 597, published in the Diário Oficial on 2 October 2026, go further: Pix, TED and boleto to any betting operator are blocked, and only refunds go through.
• Advertising and sponsorship are banned, an inter-ministerial committee coordinates enforcement, and the Federal Police, Receita Federal and COAF share data.
• There is no local referee. Offshore operators never answered to the SPA. If one keeps your balance, there is no Brazilian regulator whose job is to get it back for you.

Players are not punished. Neither the MP nor bill PL 5.477/2026 penalises people for placing bets. The bill, now before Congress, proposes criminal offences for running betting operations, advertising them, recruiting players and acting as a financial intermediary — but it is a bill, not law, and none of those offences exist yet. Not being punished is not the same as being protected: the risk is financial, not criminal, and it falls on your money.

Why custody matters more under a ban

This is where our rating differs from a list of bonuses, and the ban makes the difference sharper.

A custodial platform holds your balance. You deposit, the operator keeps the money in its own accounts, and you trust it to pay when you ask. In Brazil today that trust carries the whole weight: the domain can be blocked between your deposit and your withdrawal, Pix to the operator is blocked, and no local regulator stands behind you. Stake, Cloudbet and BC.Game are custodial, and so are DexSport, Vave and Sportbet.one, despite marketing themselves as crypto-native.

A non-custodial platform has no balance to freeze. You connect your own wallet, the bet settles in a smart contract, and the payout lands back in that wallet. There is no account to close and no withdrawal queue for anyone to sit on. If the site’s domain is blocked, your funds are not inside it — they were in your wallet the whole time. SX Bet, Overtime Markets, BetDEX, Bookmaker.xyz and Divvy.bet work this way, as does Polymarket, though it prices probability rather than fixed odds.

Non-custodial does not mean protected. The MP bans offering bets in Brazil however the platform is built, front ends get blocked like any other address, a smart contract can have bugs, and there is still nobody to complain to. What custody changes is narrower and concrete: whether someone else is holding your money when something goes wrong. That is why it carries the heaviest weight in the Degen Score. Not as ideology — it is the variable that changes what can actually go wrong.

Coins and networks, if you hold crypto in Brazil

Buying crypto in Brazil is still the easy part: local exchanges are mature and take reais by Pix. The new Banco Central rules are aimed at payments to betting operators. The step that costs people money comes after — which network you send on.

• USDT is the most widely accepted stablecoin on crypto sportsbooks and exists on more networks than any other.
• The network and the day decide the fee, not habit. The old rule that TRC-20 is always far cheaper than ERC-20 no longer holds: either can come out cheaper depending on the day, and on Tron it depends on whether you have energy staked or rented. Compare before you send, and compare your exchange’s withdrawal fee too — it is often bigger than the network fee itself.
• USDC is where non-custodial betting mostly lives; most platforms that settle on-chain prefer it.
• Bitcoin answers the custody question for you: every platform on our list that takes native BTC is custodial.
• A deposit address belongs to one network. Send over one it does not support and the money is usually gone. Send a small test amount first.

Next

Our guides go deeper, though they are general rather than Brazil-specific: how crypto betting works, choosing between BTC, ETH and USDC, getting a wallet.

Common questions

Is crypto betting legal in Brazil now?

Not for operators. Since 25 September 2026, MP 1.394 bans offering fixed-odds betting in Brazil, whether the site is licensed, offshore or crypto-based, and crypto payments were already banned in the licensed market by Ordinance 615/2024. Players are not penalised, neither by the MP nor by bill PL 5.477/2026. The MP is being challenged at the STF and still needs a vote in Congress, so check the date on whatever you read. We are not lawyers, and this is not legal advice.

Can I still bet in Brazil, and what happens to money left on betting sites?

Not on a licensed site: they stopped taking deposits on 25 September 2026 and went offline on 6 October 2026. Players had until 23:59 on 5 October 2026 to withdraw. Balances left behind are returned through the banks between 9 and 14 October 2026, and whatever cannot be returned goes to an account at Caixa. That process covers the licensed .bet.br operators only. A balance on an offshore custodial site is outside it, and getting that back depends on the operator alone.

Why won’t a betting site open in Brazil?

Most likely its address is on the block list. The Finance Ministry orders the block and Anatel passes it to internet providers; more than 80,000 addresses have been blocked since October 2024, over 57,000 of them in the first nine months of 2026. A block can arrive without warning on a site that worked yesterday.

Why was my Pix to a betting site refused?

Since 2 October 2026, Banco Central Resolutions 595, 596 and 597, issued under MP 1.394, block Pix, TED and boleto to any betting operator; only refunds go through. A refused Pix is that rule working as designed, not a fault on your side.

Is there crypto betting where nobody holds my money?

Yes — non-custodial platforms. You connect a wallet, the bet settles in a smart contract, and the payout returns to the wallet you control, so there is no balance anyone can freeze. That removes one risk, not all of them: the legal ban, blocked front ends and smart-contract bugs still apply. The Degen Score explains how we weigh it.

Which crypto and network do Brazilians use for betting?

Stablecoins dominate, because they remove exchange-rate risk between deposit and payout. USDT has the widest acceptance; USDC has the best coverage on non-custodial platforms. For the network, compare fees on the day you send, including your exchange’s withdrawal fee, and always match the network the deposit address asks for.