Top Casinos and Best Banking Options for Brazilian Players

The legal landscape in Brazil concerning gambling activities is an interesting occurrence to observe. While the rules and regulations may seem strict at first sight, the country is often described as an emerging market, especially when it comes to online casinos and gambling sites.

Is online casino gaming even legal in Brazil? Well, since the Criminal Contravention Act was passed in 1946, casino gaming in Brazil is prohibited. In practice, it became a legal grey area. The only “fully legal” gaming scene in Brazil comes down to bingo and lottery gaming. Before 1946, Brazil allowed the operation of casinos. But, the Criminal Contravention Act outlawed them and still remains in place today.

In recent decades, the gambling industry became much more diverse and many countries started struggling with adapting their legal frameworks to address the boom of online casino and sports betting platforms. As much as players are enthusiastic to see this through, the process is usually very slow and full of turmoil.

Brazilian players who get lucky and win while enjoying regulated forms of entertainment will not be able to cash out their winnings in entirety. Instead, gains will be reduced by 30% due to an exclusive withholding income tax that applies to whole prize amounts.

So, whether you play lotteries or bet on horse races, you must part with 30% of your winnings. However, you don’t pay the tax yourself. Instead, according to the law, the operator you have played with will withhold the due tax amount and pay it.

On the other hand, winnings obtained while playing poker are subject to a different withholding income tax. When payouts are won at games of skill, they are subject to progressive tax rates, ranging from 7.5% up to 27.5%. The same goes for winnings obtained on sports betting and offshore casino sites.

However, a 30% withholding income tax applies to gains from fixed-odds sports betting above 1,903.99 BRL, which is the personal income tax exemption limit.

You should never play at a Brazil-oriented online casino that doesn’t hold a licence, as simple as that. Once you’ve validated the license info and all the certification that ensures fairness, you will never have the need to question the site’s integrity. A licensed casino ensures that all your deposits remain safe, as well as your personal data shared with the operator. Furthermore, it guarantees that you’ll receive all your winnings. The best licences on the market are issued by the authorities in Malta, Curaçao and Gibraltar. You can be sure that these authorities perform stringent checks to ensure that every player is protected.

We’ve already established that Brazilian players do have plenty of options when it comes to depositing real money to an online casino, but we must point out that it is unlikely for deposits to be outright accepted in BRL currency (Brazilian Real).

What this means is that you may have to sign up for an online casino account by choosing a more commonly accepted currency, such as USD, EUR, GBP, AUD or CAD, which isn’t all that bad but comes with additional charges. If you deposit in local currency and the casino doesn’t accept it, your funds will be automatically converted and you will suffer the corresponding exchange fees.

Brazil’s most successful poker player is Joao Simao Peres, ranking #8 on the 2022 WSOP Player of the Year list. So far, Simao Peres has earned more than $5.2 million participating in poker tournaments, with 8 wins and 111 cashes. In 2022, he won his second golden bracelet at the World Series of Poker (WSOP). Once considered the best online poker player, Simao Peres became a Partypoker ambassador in Brazil in 2016.

Yuri Martins Dzivielevski is another professional poker player from Brazil that participates in online and live poker tournaments. According to Poker Hendon Mob, the largest poker database, Dzivielevski has won almost $5 million in live tourneys. So far, he has won two bracelets at the WSOP and cashed 73 times. When playing online, he uses various nicknames. The one he uses on PokerStars is theNERDguy.

Alexandre Gomes is considered the most successful live poker tournament player in Brazil. So far, he has won more than $3.7 million in live tournament cashes. In 2008, he became the first winner of a WSOP bracelet in his country.

With no bracelet but with more than 120 cashes, Felipe Tavares Ramos is another successful poker player from Brazil. Also known as Felipe Mojave because of his nickname on the PokerStars platform, Ramos has earned more than $3 million in live tournaments, with more than $1.3 million at the WSOP only.

André Akkari won the 2011 WSOP $1,500 No-Limit Hold ’em event, which earned him a bracelet. As a professional poker player, Akkari earned more than $3 million in live tournaments, with more than 90 total cashes. At the WSOP only, the Brazilian won more than $1.2 million.