More than 800 influencers have been using Instagram to promote links to suspected illegal betting sites in Brazil, according to a survey by Legitbet, the monitoring platform used by the Associação Nacional de Jogos e Loterias (ANJL) to track the illegal market.
Legitbet identified 802 such profiles in a base of 48,318 Instagram accounts it follows, using data consolidated up to Monday 2 November. The ANJL stresses this is the number found so far, not the total on the platform.
The findings
- Audience size: 73% of the profiles have between 10,000 and 100,000 followers; 23.6% have 100,000 to 1 million; 2.9% have fewer than 10,000; 0.5% have more than 1 million.
- Frequency: almost 74% posted suspect links repeatedly, at least once every three days.
- Destinations: the links pointed to 844 different sites; the most-shared link appeared on 86 profiles.
- Speed: in one round on 27 October, the system checked 908 profiles in 1 hour 25 minutes and found 626 promoting suspect links, plus 500 new addresses, 396 of them in an affiliate-link format.
Based on the follower counts, the ANJL estimates the potential reach of these posts at between 5.9 million and 59.4 million people.
Minors exposed
ANJL president Plínio Lemos Jorge said:
“Estamos falando de apenas uma das várias redes disponíveis na internet. E é importante destacar o seguinte: o Instagram permite a abertura de contas de adolescentes a partir dos 13 anos. Todo esse público também está exposto a esses influenciadores e aos sites ilegais, que não proíbem o acesso de menores de idade”
(Translated from Portuguese: “We are talking about just one of the many networks available on the internet. And it is important to point out that Instagram allows teenagers to open accounts from the age of 13. This whole audience is also exposed to these influencers and to the illegal sites, which do not stop minors from accessing them.”)
Enforcement weakened by the ban
In early September, the ANJL sent extrajudicial notices to Meta, Google, TikTok and X asking for a permanent plan to identify, remove, de-index and block content from influencers promoting illegal operators. The association says it received no reply.
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Since President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva issued Provisional Measure 1.394 in September, banning the licensed fixed-odds market, the ANJL says the fight against these promotions has weakened. Lemos Jorge said:
“A ANJL, assim como outras entidades, seguem representando o setor de apostas de quota fixa. Mas a decisão repentina e unilateral do Governo Federal de extinguir o mercado tornou mais difícil o caminho do diálogo entre as bets legalizadas e as big techs porque o que se formou no Brasil foi uma grande confusão e insegurança jurídica, em que apenas essas empresas ilegais estão ganhando”
(Translated from Portuguese: “The ANJL, like other bodies, continues to represent the fixed-odds betting sector. But the Federal Government’s sudden and unilateral decision to abolish the market has made dialogue between licensed operators and big tech harder, because what has formed in Brazil is great confusion and legal uncertainty, in which only these illegal companies are winning.”)
The association argues that restoring the regulated market is the best way to cut migration to illegal sites. It previously backed police action against illegal operators in Operação Azzardo.
