Licensed betting sites in Brazil emptied within days of President Lula signing the measure that bans them, before they were even switched off. By Thursday, October 1, the share of Blask’s Brazilian panel visiting a licensed .bet.br site was 74% below normal, six days after Provisional Measure 1.394 was published.
Over the same week, reach to unlicensed sites never moved more than 11% from normal in either direction. The legal channel closed in a week, and the money has not visibly moved to the other side.
What the Blask panel measures
Blask measured behavior directly, through an opt-in panel of 25,000 to 72,000 people in Brazil who agreed to share browsing data. “Normal” in this article means the panel’s usual level before the measure. The other half of the picture, how demand for the brands themselves moved, is in our daily Blask Index data.
Why licensed betting sites in Brazil emptied: deposits stopped first
Deposits stopped on Friday, September 25. On Saturday, page events per licensed visitor fell 41%: players were logging in to withdraw, not to bet. By Thursday, October 1, licensed reach was 74% below normal and branded search for licensed brands 83% below.
| Measure, first week after the measure | Change vs normal |
|---|---|
| Panel reach, licensed sites | –74% by October 1 |
| Branded search, licensed brands | –83% by October 1 |
| Branded search, offshore brands | –7% to –17% |
| Panel reach, unlicensed sites | within ±11% every day |
Offshore brands held their search demand
Offshore brands lost only 7% to 17% of their branded search. Their share of Brazil’s branded search rose from 4% to 16%, which reflects the licensed side shrinking more than offshore growing.
1win ran at 3.5 to 4.9 times its September average over the week.
Players who switched went to familiar names
Of 5,970 panelists who had used only licensed sites, a third stopped using them. 6.7% tried an unlicensed site, against 5.1% in a normal week.
The switchers went to names they knew, often through numbered mirror domains that do not carry the brand’s name. 1win reached 722 panelists, and one new mirror went from zero to 505 in a week. International sites of Brazil-licensed brands, which are unlicensed in Brazil, drew more Brazilians too: stake.com reached 271 panelists in the first week, up from 78.
💡 Key point: most legal bettors have simply stopped for now. Blask does not yet see a surge in unlicensed traffic.
The unlicensed market has not filled the gap yet
The path is short. 57% of Brazilian bettors had visited an unlicensed site in the 90 days before the ban.
The supply side is ready. An industry monitor counted 6,401 new illegal betting sites in a single week, and the government asked for 5,209 betting domains to be taken down in the first five days.
📚 Read more: Brazil’s betting ban: a lost market for some, a lost business for most
What the first week does not tell us
Six days of data show where players went first. They do not show where they end up. After India’s ban, domestic sites lost 73% of their reach over three months while most of their players kept betting, almost all offshore. We compare the two markets in India’s betting ban and the 63% who kept betting.
Blask expects Brazil to follow the same pattern, and faster. This is an inference from India, not a measurement of Brazil. The full panel analysis and methodology are in Blask’s report on Brazil’s betting ban.
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