Brazil has a long betting history, spanning all the way back to decades ago, before World War II. In 1946, betting in Brazil was already a popular activity, which gathered momentum at lightning speed. This prompted the authorities to enact the so-called Criminal Contravention Act.
The law sought to ban all unregulated betting activities in the country, shaking the nation's entire gambling scene to the core. Yet, the government of Brazil did not anticipate online betting. After all, who expected such a dramatic transformation to the world of betting back then?
In the early 2000s, the writing was already on the wall that the internet would take over the world. In fact, online gambling became a hot topic in the country, since the Brazilian government did not have a mechanism to prevent citizens from betting online.
As such, a bill would be passed to outlaw online gambling. Did it succeed? Not really. With internet usage spreading so fast, this turned out to be an exercise in futility. Besides, Brazil is still a developing country, so they did not have enough resources to invest in the technology to prevent people from gambling online.
The government of Brazil would later make another ineffective attempt to ban online gambling sites in 2009. The move failed terribly, but the government did not stop there. Another failed attempt involved prohibiting payment processors from transacting with online gaming platforms in 2010.
Temporary Reprieve
Thanks to the World Cup, this ban on online gambling was temporarily lifted in 2014. The Brazilian authorities saw this as a lucrative event that would generate lots of revenue. At that time, Brazilians were allowed to bet on sports and lotteries offered by Caixa Economica, a government-owned financial institution.