The government of Brazil took direct action against two of the world’s largest technology companies. The Ministry of Justice and Public Security formally notified Apple and Google for allowing the distribution of betting applications without regulatory authorization on their platforms, in what represents a clear sign that the country is moving towards stricter control of the digital ecosystem linked to gambling.
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The letters that set off alarms in Silicon Valley
Official Letters N° 455 and N° 456/2026, jointly signed by the National Secretary for Digital Rights and the National Consumer Secretary, were issued on April 17, 2026. The document originated from a routine monitoring carried out by the General Coordination of Classification of the National Secretariat for Digital Rights (Sedigi), which identified the presence of irregular gambling applications in both stores.
The notification was not an isolated act: it is part of a sustained policy of the Brazilian State to regulate the digital betting market, whose regulation is in full process of consolidation.
What applications were detected and where they were available
The Ministry reported that fixed-odds betting applications and other modalities were identified, accessible both on the Play Store, Google’s store for Android devices, and on the App Store, Apple’s distribution platform for iOS. The common denominator for all of them: none had authorization from the Secretariat of Prizes and Bets of the Ministry of Finance, the body responsible for enabling this type of service in Brazil.
An element that aggravated the situation in the eyes of the authorities is that these applications did not operate clandestinely. On the contrary, they could be easily found through simple searches within both platforms, which exposes weaknesses in content control and validation mechanisms.
The protection of minors as the central focus of the claim
Beyond the regulatory irregularity of gambling itself, the Ministry emphasized another dimension of the problem: the violation of the digital rights of children and adolescents. The authorities expressly cited Article 21 of Decree 12.880/2026, which regulates the Digital Law for Childhood and Adolescence, a norm that imposes on app stores the obligation to prevent the distribution of unauthorized gambling products in the country.
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By being available without effective access restrictions, these applications potentially exposed minors to content and dynamics typical of gambling, in direct contradiction with the current legal framework.
What the government demands from Apple and Google
The notification was not limited to pointing out the infringement: it established a series of concrete requirements that both companies must comply with. Firstly, Google and Apple will have to formally detail their internal policies for distributing gambling applications, including their pre-selection processes and the age verification mechanisms implemented on their platforms.
Additionally, the Federal Government requested from each company an exhaustive list of all lottery, casino, and betting applications available in the Brazilian market within their respective stores. This report must specify the identity of the developer responsible for each application, the assigned age rating, and the regulatory authorization declared by the operator.
Brazil consolidates its role as an active regulator of digital gambling
This action is part of a broader process of regulating the betting market in Brazil, which has experienced explosive growth in recent years. The country enabled fixed-odds sports betting in 2018 and has since been working on building a regulatory framework to organize a sector that moves millions and, in the absence of effective controls, favors the proliferation of unlicensed operators.
The notification to Apple and Google is a sign that Brazilian authorities are not only targeting gambling operators but also the technology platforms that facilitate their distribution, thus extending the scope of regulation to the entire value chain of the digital ecosystem.
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