Brazil’s Justice Ministry challenges Google and Apple over illegal betting apps

Brazil’s Ministry of Justice and Public Security has sent formal notices to Google Brasil and Apple after identifying more than 120 betting apps in the Play Store and App Store that were allegedly available without federal authorisation, raising new pressure on the role of digital platforms in policing the country’s regulated betting market.

According to the MJSP, the notices were sent on 17 April and made public on 18 April 2026. The ministry said routine monitoring by the General Coordination for Age Classification, within the National Secretariat for Digital Rights, found numerous apps that apparently promoted or enabled fixed-odds betting and other lottery products without regulatory authorisation from the Secretariat of Prizes and Betting of the Ministry of Finance. The government also said many of those apps could be found easily through simple searches, including terms such as “jogo do Tigrinho.”

The case is significant because Brazil now has a clear federal authorisation framework for betting. The Ministry of Finance states that, since 1 January 2025, only companies authorised by the SPA may operate fixed-odds sports betting and online gaming nationally, and federally authorised brands use the “.bet.br” domain structure. The official list of authorised operators is publicly available on the Finance Ministry’s website, which the Justice Ministry said makes basic verification operationally simple for app stores.

The MJSP is also framing the issue as one of child and consumer protection, not only gambling regulation. In the notice, the ministry said the identified conduct may conflict with Brazil’s digital child-protection law and the Consumer Defense Code. It additionally cited Article 21 of Decree No. 12,880/2026, which expressly says app stores and operating systems must prevent the availability of products or services that promote or enable access to unauthorised lotteries, including fixed-odds betting.

The notices require Google and Apple to explain their internal rules for distributing betting apps, their prior review procedures for checking regulatory authorisation and age-verification mechanisms, and to provide an updated list of gambling-related apps currently available to users in Brazil. The ministry stressed that the notices themselves do not yet impose sanctions, but warned that the responses — or the lack of them — could support a formal administrative proceeding. In practical terms, the move shows that Brazil is entering a stricter enforcement phase in which platform responsibility is becoming part of the betting-regulation debate, not just operator licensing.