The Ministry of Justice (MJ) decided to notify Apple and Google for maintaining betting applications in their online stores that do not comply with Brazilian legislation. The measure, however, does not represent punishment against the two companies. According to letters to which TV Globo had access, signed by the ministry's national secretary of Digital Rights, Victor Oliveira Fernandes, betting applications are available in these stores without authorization to operate and which do not have an age verification mechanism. ??In Brazil, betting sites and applications need authorization from the Prizes and Betting Secretariat of the Ministry of Finance to operate. Furthermore, the legislation prohibits access by minors under 18 to so-called “bets”. And to prevent this access, the Digital Child and Adolescent Statute (Eca) establishes that betting applications must have an age verification mechanism (read more below).
Ministry decides to notify Apple and Google for irregular offering of betting applications
The Ministry of Justice (MJ) decided to notify Apple and Google for maintaining betting applications in their online stores that do not comply with Brazilian legislation. The measure, however, does not represent...
?ECA Digital is the law that updates the protection of children and adolescents on the internet. In force since March 2026, the standard establishes rules for social networks, games, applications and other digital platforms, with the aim of increasing the online safety of minors. Apple and Google Reuters/Mike Segar/Andrew Kelly First notification The documents show that the Ministry of Justice notified Apple and Google for the first time last April. These same documents indicate that the measure was taken after routine monitoring carried out by a department technician. The professionals identified, in these stores, the presence of “numerous applications that would promote, offer or enable access to fixed-odd bets and other lottery modalities without authorization from the Secretariat of Prizes and Bets of the Ministry of Finance (SPA/MF), which would remain available for download and installation without effective age control.” In those letters, the ministry also asked for information about the two companies' policies regarding betting applications, in addition to the screening mechanisms used by them to identify whether these applications complied with the legislation. The new letters indicate that the ministry carried out, on June 29th, a new survey of virtual stores and found that both continued to offer access to applications that did not comply with the law. These new letters request additional information from Apple and Google, such as the mechanisms adopted by them to ensure that minors under 18 do not have access to inappropriate content. g1 contacted the press office of both companies, but, until the last update, was awaiting answers.
