The Brazilian sports betting market is approaching the end of its first year under formal regulation, yet it already faces an inflection point that threatens the integrity of the entire sector: the rapid expansion of arbitrage.
While the practice is not illegal, it stands at the center of what may undermine the economic rationale of betting operations.
Below are three central points of attention on the issue:
1. The essence of betting and the problem of professionalized arbitrage: The legal definition of a wager requires risk, uncertainty, and a recreational purpose. Arbitrage aims for the exact opposite: the neutralization of risk through simultaneous bets on all possible outcomes, converting what should be entertainment into a form of investment – often sophisticated, automated, and professionalized.
With odds scanning software, high speed bots, multiple accounts, and VPNs, arbitrage has evolved from isolated conduct into a structured strategy. Foreign scholarship classifies this behavior as a “misuse of the market,” rather than legitimate participation in it. And rightly so: when the user seeks to eliminate risk, the contractual logic is broken and the economic balance of the system is distorted.
2. Contractual integrity and operators’ response: SPA/MF Ordinance No. 1,231/2024 makes clear that operators must maintain transparent terms and conditions, including rules governing account limitations and closures. Equally clear is the bettor’s obligation to read and accept such terms or simply migrate to one of the more than 170 other licensed platforms in the market. Major operators active in Brazil expressly prohibit arbitrage, manipulation of odds discrepancies, unauthorized automated software, and coordinated user behavior. This standard is not a Brazilian innovation. The United Kingdom, Spain, and Italy treat professionalized arbitrage as a direct threat to the integrity of the regulated market. Brazil cannot move in the opposite direction of this technical consensus.
3. The Brazilian judiciary and the ongoing dispute: In May 2025, isolated court decisions invalidated restrictive clauses under consumer protection principles and even awarded moral damages against operators, opening the door to a wave of opportunistic litigation. More recent rulings, however, have adopted a position more aligned with international practice: they uphold such restrictions when clearly set forth in the terms and when the user has unequivocal notice.
The landscape remains fragmented, without consolidation. And precisely because of that, the issue requires a systemic and serious approach: arbitrage is not a mere contractual breach, it is a direct threat to the integrity of the regulated model, with economic consequences and potential competitive distortions. The professionalization of arbitrage may generate large scale effects: artificial odds volatility, market instability, predatory litigation, and erosion of the recreational bettor experience.
Arbitrage challenges the very essence of wagering and places the sustainability of the regulated market at risk. At this pivotal moment in Brazil’s regulatory development, manipulative practices cannot be normalized, nor can poorly calibrated judicial decisions fuel a burgeoning damages driven litigation industry.
The judiciary must recognize the economic and systemic dimension of the issue. Operators, regulators, and the courts must act in coordinated fashion to safeguard the integrity, predictability, and recreational logic that justify the sector’s existence. Arbitrage is not entertainment. It is a structural distortion and must be treated as such.
