Monitoring of the market for fixed-odds bets, known as betting, is compromised by the weak staff structure of the Secretariat of Prices and Betting (SPA), a body of the Ministry of Finance created to regulate and monitor the sector, the Federal Court of Auditors (TCU) has said.
The court identified a vulnerable scenario in preventing money laundering due to insufficient number of servers and absence of adequate technological tools.
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According to the report carried out by Minister Jhonatan de Jesus, the team responsible for monitoring practices to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing in the betting sector currently has only three permanent employees.
The General Coordination for the Supervision of Money Laundering and Other Offenses (CGLD) was deemed incapable of meeting at least the demands of the market, which is growing at a rapid pace with the regulation of betting.
The TCU called the situation a critical point in the regulatory structure. In addition to staff shortages, auditors identified a lack of technological and budgetary resources.
The SPA does not yet have analytical tools to track financial movements, monitor the behavior of bettors and track suspicious behavior, that is to say that for the TCU, a large part of the controls are carried out on the basis of declarative documents, which leaves room for illicit practices.
The Court determined that the Treasury must provide, within 120 days, the necessary resources for the SPA to carry out its functions “adequately and proportionate to the risk of the sector”. The organization also recommended the development of operational manuals to guide teams.
According to the TCU, the lack of structure comes at a time when the market requires constant vigilance. Operators, players and intermediaries move large sums of money on a daily basis, which the court said makes stronger action by the ministry in the fight against money laundering essential.
What the Treasury says
In a note, SPA informed that it had received the determination from the TCU and was evaluating the document to better comply with what was requested.
The ministry said that since its establishment in 2024, it had sought to gradually increase its personnel and technology structure, and that the TCU’s recommendations would be taken into account when setting priorities.
He also indicated that he was developing specific analytical tools to prevent money laundering, in partnership with the Laboratory Network of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, through a Technical Cooperation Agreement.
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