Over 3 Million Social Program Beneficiaries Barred from Betting

Cover image: Based on work by Jon Houseman and Matthew Ford, but improved contrast + numbered labels — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

More than 3 million beneficiaries of federal social programs have been prevented from opening or maintaining accounts on sites authorized to operate fixed-odds bets (bets), announced by the Secretariat of Social Communications (Secom) of the Presidency of the Republic.

Módulo Impedidos: how the functionality was implemented and who developed it

The blocking began to be enabled by a feature of the Sistema de Gestão de Apostas (Sigap) put into operation in October 2025. According to Secom, the Módulo Impedidos was developed by the Federal Data Processing Service (Serpro) to enable automatic eligibility checks of users.

The module’s development followed a determination by the Supreme Federal Court (STF), issued in November 2024, which called on the government to adopt measures to prevent the use of social program resources in online betting.

In Secom’s description, Sigap is the technological platform that supports regulation, monitoring, and oversight of the betting market in the country; the Módulo Impedidos was integrated into this structure through Serpro.

How the system identifies impeded users and how the information reaches betting sites

The verification is carried out in real time by the Módulo Impedidos, through cross-checking the CPF with other information provided by the user, according to Secom. The process is automated and does not involve manual intervention, per the same statement.

According to Secom, licensed companies consult the information gathered by Sigap and, when an impediment is identified, the decision to deny registration or to close an account is made by the operator itself.

Sigap, per Secom, has the technical capacity to process about 500 million records per day and already accumulates more than 5 million operational files in its database, data that support the real-time checks of the Módulo Impedidos.

Who is on the impeded list and handling of existing accounts

Secom stated that among those impeded are beneficiaries of federally funded social programs expressly named, such as Bolsa Família, the Continuous Cash Benefit (BPC), the Student Financing Fund (FIES) and participants in debt renegotiation programs, including Desenrola Brasil.

When the impediment is identified on an existing account on a betting platform, the operator has up to three days to close the account and return to the user all the available balance, Secom says.

According to the same statement, there are no provisions for other sanctions on the user or penalties on the companies due to this automated block; the measure is limited to identifying and requiring the closure of accounts or registration refusals by operators where applicable.

Legal basis and limits of automated action

The creation of the Módulo Impedidos is presented by Secom as compliance with a STF determination from November 2024, which called for measures to avoid “negative impacts on family budgets and mental health, especially for people in vulnerable situations”.

According to the official statement, the system operates automatically and decisions on registrations and closures are made by the operators based on information provided by Sigap; there is no manual intervention in the process, nor imposition of other penalties mentioned by Secom.

In short, Secom describes a flow in which Sigap identifies impediments through data cross-checks, notifies operators in real time and those operators, where applicable, must close existing accounts and return balances within three days.

Fontes consultadas: - Agência Brasil - Últimas Notícias — https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/direitos-humanos/noticia/2026-08/mais-de-3-milhoes-com-beneficios-federais-sao-bloqueados-em-bets