The National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) stated it needs more powerful legal tools to effectively act against betting platforms operating illegally in Brazil. The president of the institution, Carlos Baigorri, advocates for a change in the law to expand the state's power in taking down irregular bets.
Under the current rules, the regulatory body admits it cannot ensure that the irregular sites reported by the Ministry of Finance are, in fact, blocked.
"The way it is today, we are just mopping up water, and the blockage that exists is very ineffective", stated to Folha the president of Anatel, Carlos Baigorri. "They've handed me a hot potato, and I'm saying: this [low effectiveness] is going to be bad for the entire government".
According to him, the difficulties are of various natures, from the lack of technology to monitor the implemented blockages to the lack of regulatory power over an economic agent with a fundamental role in the functioning of the internet: the so-called DNS operator.
The DNS operator acts like a large telephone directory of the digital environment: the user informs the name of the site they want to access (which starts with www), and the company identifies which IP number should direct the access.
When Anatel determines the blocking of irregular bets, it does so from a list of IP addresses used today by the platforms. But nothing prevents the bets from breaking through the barrier by asking the DNS operator to replace the old number in the "telephone directory" with a new IP outside the blockade.
This strategy has already been used by X (formerly Twitter) to bypass judicial decisions that determined the suspension of the social network in Brazil.
"It's like 'my new number is such, so when anyone writes 123bet, send them to this new number'. And I'm blocking an old number. Then, the site starts working again. And what's the problem? The Brazilian state has no power of regulation, supervision, and sanctioning of these DNS operators", warns Baigorri, adding that many of these operators are based outside of Brazil.
In the case of X, a decision by the Supreme Federal Court (STF) allowed Anatel to act on the DNS operator, closing the identified loopholes, but the support was only valid for that specific case.
In practice, this means that the 5,200 illegal betting sites blocked by the government are free to reactivate using the same maneuver, until the Executive manages to identify the new IP numbers used by the irregular platforms to include them in the list and issue new suspension requests.
"There is a limitation in the state's capacity to make this blockage effective", states the president of Anatel. According to him, the agency has sent a proposal for an MP (provisional measure) to the Ministries of Finance and Sports to improve regulation and provide administrative police power over DNS operators.
There are three possible paths. The first is to expand the powers of Anatel, amending the General Telecommunications Law to state that the agency has the power to regulate, supervise, and sanction these economic agents.
The second option is to change the law that regulated the bets to expand the only paragraph that deals with blockages to state that DNS operators are also required to comply with these decisions. The third way would be to modify the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet to expand the guidelines for blocking sites.
"If the state wants to have some power of command in the internet environment, these agents also need to be subject to state control", says Baigorri.
The president of Anatel states that the goal of the change is not to take down DNS operators at any time, because, as the sector is very concentrated in a few companies, such a decision would compromise not only the bets but even government sites.
Placing them under regulation, according to Baigorri, is important to be able to demand their cooperation in taking down illegal platforms. "A rule without a sanction for non-compliance is just a good practice, not mandatory. So, you have to create [the obligation and] the sanction. And we have an idea of how to modulate the sanction", he states.
Even if Anatel is successful in its plea for greater regulatory power, the agency currently cannot monitor the compliance of the blockages.
"Anatel does not have a red button that takes down sites from the air. We communicate with all telecommunications companies. There are 20,000, roughly, because we are talking about the big ones, but [also] those little ones in the interior of Brazil. When you talk about 3,000 sites in 20,000 networks, there are 60 million checks. Today, we cannot guarantee that the blockade is being enforced", he acknowledges.
According to him, the agency can more closely monitor the large operators, which concentrate between 80% and 90% of user accesses, but does not have the resources to monitor 100%.
The agency needs R$ 7.5 million to hire a technological tool that should improve the monitoring of suspensions, but it has not yet secured all the necessary resources.
Baigorri warns that the Brazilian state's inability to curb illegal bets in Brazil may also cause problems for the proper functioning of the legal market, as companies that paid the grant to operate in Brazil may feel disadvantaged.
The solution, in his view, is to combine improvements in legislation with actions that deter users from these irregular platforms, creating access difficulties and blocking even the payment methods used by these companies.
"Imagine, you put money in a bet that is irregular, the next day the site is down. Even if it comes back in two hours, during those two hours your money had disappeared. I can't eradicate the irregular bet from reality, but I will make it so bad that no one will play on it."
The president of Anatel also warns that backtracking on the regulation of bets, repealing the law or declaring its unconstitutionality, will not have a greater effect in terms of curbing the activity in Brazil. "You can't put the genie back in the bottle".
However, he criticizes the current model of regulation adopted in Brazil, with centralized supervision in the SPA (Secretariat of Prizes and Bets), linked to the Treasury —focused on taxation and which has a different view from the Ministry of Sports, concerned with the weight this market has for football clubs, for example.
"If you want to follow the textbook on regulation, first [you need] a collegiate body, not just one person. Then, every rule you make must have regulatory impact analysis, public consultation, discussion with the agents. People decided to regulate, but they are not following the textbook of regulation", criticizes Baigorri.
Source: Folha
