When Law 13.756/2018 was signed in December 2018, Brazil officially entered the era of online gambling. The law legalised fixed-odds betting and gave the Ministry of Finance authority to regulate and license operators. What lawmakers didn’t anticipate was that the delay in regulation would create one of the biggest unregulated digital booms in the country’s history – a wave of fake games that captured millions of players before the government could act.
Between 2018 and 2023, Brazil had a law but no functioning regulatory system. No licences were issued, no audits were conducted, and no compliance standards were enforced. In that vacuum, offshore operators and unverified software providers flooded the Brazilian market. They introduced fake games – cloned versions of real games that looked identical but ran on unverified random-number generators (RNGs) and unauthorised servers.
For the average player, there was no way to tell whether a slot or roulette table was real or fake. These games spread rapidly across the internet, often embedded in influencer streams, Telegram channels, and copycat casino sites. According to data from IDnow 2022 (a report by IDnow GmbH, a trusted European identity-verification provider, analysing global online gambling and compliance patterns), Brazil accounted for over 20% of global online gambling traffic despite having no operational regulation in place. The country had inadvertently become a global hotspot for fake games.
Five years later, in December 2023, Law 14.790/2023 was enacted to finally close the loophole. It expanded the 2018 framework, legalising both sports betting and online gaming events – defined as electronic games whose results depend on random generation of numbers or symbols. Under the new law:
It was Brazil’s first comprehensive attempt to separate real games from fake games. But by then, the latter had already become deeply embedded in online play culture.
Today, Brazil counts at least 20 million active bettors, and the real figure could be closer to 40 million, according to analysts such as Regulus Partners and EY. Despite the new legal framework, around half of all online gaming activity still takes place on unlicensed platforms – where fake games remain widely available. These unverified titles often promise faster pay-outs or lower minimum bets, masking their lack of fairness or transparency. This duality – a booming licensed sector and a vast unregulated market – defines Brazil’s online gaming ecosystem.
Unlike licensed online casino games, which are independently tested, fake games operate without verification. They can be coded to reduce pay-outs, manipulate odds, or withhold winnings. Because they often imitate the design of legitimate titles, players may not realise they’re playing a fake version until it’s too late. The result is a gradual erosion of trust across the market – even toward legitimate operators. These fake games also expose players to other risks, such as data theft, malware, and rigged models that simulate “near-misses” to keep users playing longer.
In this environment, Gamecheck plays a vital role as an independent verification system for online casino games. The Gamecheck SEAL is a visible signal of fair play – proof that selected games have been tested and confirmed as real games in operation by their original game providers.
Gamecheck’s checks include:
In a market where cloned titles are still widespread, this verification layer helps players make informed decisions. It’s how transparency becomes protection.
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As regulation tightens, the Brazilian government has introduced exclusion measures to protect vulnerable groups. Around 50 million social-benefit recipients (including Bolsa Família and BPC beneficiaries) will be automatically blocked from accessing licensed betting sites. However, an estimated 5 million of these individuals already bet online. The restriction could unintentionally push them towards fake casino platforms, which operate outside oversight and lack responsible-gaming tools or safeguards. This policy tension – protecting vulnerable groups without driving them into unregulated environments – remains one of the biggest challenges facing Brazilian lawmakers.
Brazil’s online casino boom began with Law 13.756/2018, but its true stabilisation depends on the effective enforcement of Law 14.790/2023. After years of unregulated growth, the country is now racing to catch up with a fake-game ecosystem that matured long before oversight arrived. With tens of millions of players, the challenge is no longer simply legalisation – it’s integrity.
And in that fight, Gamecheck isn’t just helpful – it is essential. By combining evidence-based research, provider collaboration, and the blockchain-backed Gamecheck SEAL, Gamecheck helps rebuild trust in one of the world’s fastest-growing and most complex online casino markets.
