Brazil Discusses Stricter Age Verification to Shield Minors From Online Gambling

Brazil’s government is drafting regulations to prohibit young people from accessing online gambling and similar content, advancing new restrictions approved in 2025.

Brazilian Lawmakers Debate Stricter Age Verification for Gambling Sites

According to an official familiar with the matter, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government aims to issue the decree by the end of February. However, the official noted that legislation has not been finalized and internal discussions are still underway. 

The president has been keeping an eye on the country’s evolving gambling scene, as recently, he approved a law to increase taxes on gambling operators.

The newest decree forms part of the rollout of a new law scheduled to take effect in March, which is designed to protect Brazilian minors by requiring companies and platforms to limit young people’s access to illegal or potentially harmful content. Aside from access to gambling, the law would try to make it more difficult for young people to access other potentially harmful content, such as pornography.

What Would the New Law Prohibit?

Under the proposed rules, app stores and online platforms would be required to adopt age-verification measures to prevent minors from accessing inappropriate material. Websites that advertise such content (including betting, pornography, escort services, alcohol, dating apps, and weapons) would also need to verify users’ ages.

The draft decree would prohibit platforms from relying solely on self-reported ages and outline plans for the government to create its own age-verification system that websites could use.

It also introduces protections for data collected during the age-verification process, aiming to address privacy concerns raised by critics of the law. Under the draft, platforms would be barred from tracking users’ identities, browsing histories, or records related to age-verification requests and checks.

The proposed law could be viewed as a part of the broader control that Brazilian authorities might want to achieve over the digital space. In recent years, Brazil has taken a more assertive approach to regulating social media platforms in an effort to curb the spread of disinformation, a push that has frequently brought it into conflict with major companies such as Elon Musk’s X. 

Last year, Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of tighter oversight of social media companies, determining that technology firms can be held responsible for illegal content shared on their platforms. Furthermore, Brazil’s government is weighing whether to move forward later this year with legislation to regulate the use of artificial intelligence.

The gambling scene has already seen the results of this broader outreach, as thousands of illegal gambling sites were blocked last year as a result of the country’s war on illicit gambling.