Interactive

Brazil – New government developed online betting platform scheduled for testing phase

By James - 15 January 2024

The Federal Data Processing Service (Serpro) along with the Ministry of Finance presented the platform developed by the government for the integration of information processed by online operators. The new platform was introduced remotely in a meeting attended by around 200 representatives from 90 betting houses in all. The main objective of the meeting was to present the platform testing process to potential operators.

Those attending the meeting belonged to the 134 companies that had already expressed an interest to the Ministry of Finance in obtaining a license after the Ministry of Finance opened a consultation in October last year. 90 companies were reported to have signed on to take part in the tests. The government has given the remaining companies until 19 January the opportunity to take part in the programme which will begin testing on February 19th. 

This meeting was part of a broader effort to ensure that betting companies operate within a clear regulatory framework, protect consumers’ interests, prevent harmful practices and aims to establish an ethical and legal environment for the online betting industry. 

The tests are also designed to provide operators with information on the technical requirements related to sending information to the Ministry of Finance. Testing will cover connection assessments and technical requirements related to sending information to the Ministry of Finance while additional tests will focus on volume and the ability to support high loads on infrastructure, ensuring the robustness of communication between the Ministry of Finance’s management system and betting systems. At this stage tests will only be carried out for sports betting platforms.

According to a statement issued by the Ministry of Finance carrying out tests is not mandatory, nor does it constitute prior authorization or certification of betting systems. All data collected during this phase will be deleted upon completion of the tests at the end of this process which is scheduled for April 5th.

Serpro is the federal government technology company of Brazil and it was tasked with creating a system that would monitor tax collection and match manipulation on betting sites in real time.