Brazil's Ministry of Justice asked Telegram on Sunday (Sept. 27) to take down 43 channels and profiles that promote illegal online betting and virtual casinos, according to news site G1. It is the first such action since President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed a provisional decree on Friday (Sept. 25) banning the bets, the online gambling companies Brazil had licensed roughly three years earlier.
The decree, a medida provisória that takes effect immediately while Congress reviews it, set a tight schedule: new deposits were banned from Sept. 25, voluntary withdrawals run until 11:59 p.m. on Oct. 5, betting sites and apps must go offline on Oct. 6, and remaining balances must be returned to customers, identified by their tax ID, between Oct. 9 and 14. According to G1, though, Sunday's request to Telegram is not a direct result of the decree: the ministry had already been filing similar removal requests against unauthorized betting profiles and sites. The government frames the ban as a public health response; visits in the public health system linked to problem gambling rose about 140% between 2018 and 2025, according to figures cited by state news agency Agência Brasil.
How the blocking works
Think of Telegram as a shopping mall. The ministry does not demolish the illegal shops; it asks the building management to clear them from the storefront. If the platform stalls, the next step is to close the whole street. That is what Anatel, Brazil's telecom regulator, does when it orders all carriers to cut access to a domain. G1 reports the ministry is already preparing a request to the agency that could hit more than 500 illegal betting sites.
The request carries a commercial cost for Telegram. The app does not sell bets; its revenue comes from Premium subscriptions and ads placed in large public channels, precisely the kind of channel the government wants removed. G1 gives no indication the company has replied. The government's incentives are visible: the decree creates an anti-illegal-market committee run by the presidential staff, and the ban was announced nine days before the election, a point G1 highlighted. The package also includes a bill sent to Congress creating five new crimes; running fixed-odds betting would carry a prison term of 4 to 6 years even with a foreign license. Administrative fines can reach R$ 2 billion, and the 85 licensed companies, which paid R$ 30 million each for their licenses (R$ 2.55 billion in total), will receive no compensation, according to Agência Brasil.
What we still do not know
Whether Telegram will comply, and how fast, since the list of 43 channels has not been made public. Whether the Anatel request will be filed before Oct. 6. And whether removed channels simply reappear under new names, which is the practical test of any moderation policy.
For anyone holding a balance on a betting platform, the calendar is concrete: withdraw by Oct. 5, expect sites to go dark on Oct. 6, and count on automatic refunds of leftover balances between Oct. 9 and 14, with state-owned bank Caixa as the payer of last resort from Oct. 14, according to Agência Brasil. The practical advice: cash out early and be wary of Telegram channels promising withdrawals outside the official apps.