Brazil’s Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) and the Federal Revenue Service (Receita Federal) are investigating NSX Brasil, the operator of the Betnacional betting brand, over alleged money laundering, tax evasion and currency evasion. A federal court has ordered R$191 million ($36.8 million) in assets and funds connected to the group blocked.
Flutter Entertainment acquired a 56% stake in NSX in 2025, which places Betnacional inside the NYSE-listed group’s Brazilian business.
Six warrants across three cities
The action, called Operation Shadow Game (Operação Jogo de Sombras), ran on 28 August 2026. Authorities executed six search and seizure warrants in João Pessoa, Recife and São Paulo. Twenty-eight Federal Revenue Service officials and 10 federal prosecutors took part alongside police and forensic staff. No arrest warrants were issued.
Investigators say NSX Brasil moved more than R$5 billion ($964 million) during 2025. The Federal Revenue Service estimates the case could return around R$300 million to public coffers.
The Curaçao structure
The central allegation is about where the business was actually run from. Investigators are examining whether the group used companies registered in jurisdictions including Curaçao to present its Brazilian operations as offshore, a structure put in place before Brazil’s licensed betting market opened in January 2025.
According to the investigation, Brazilian entities controlled the platform while money moved abroad through structured transactions and pooled fintech accounts, which made the flow of funds harder to trace. Authorities also allege that fictitious expenses were booked to cut the taxable base.
The distinction carries real money. An operator treated as foreign is taxed differently from one whose economic activity sits in Brazil, and the licensed market has become a significant revenue line for the government. Betting tax receipts reached R$8.7 billion in the first seven months of the year.
Officials on the case
Robinson Barreirinhas, Special Secretary of the Federal Revenue Service, said:
“The company presented itself abroad in a simulated way and should pay the tax here in Brazil.”
Daniele Cardoso, Secretary of Prizes and Bets (SPA) at the Ministry of Finance, added:
“The decapitalization of these organizations is a fundamental mission.”
The SPA has confirmed that Betnacional is subject to two administrative sanctioning proceedings. No precautionary measure suspending its betting operations has been applied at this stage.
Betnacional keeps trading
Betnacional remains live in Brazil. The company says it is cooperating with the authorities and operates in line with Brazilian law and regulation, and that it follows the governance and compliance standards of Flutter Entertainment.
Its lawyers said they have not yet been granted access to the case file, which limits what the company can say about the specific allegations.
What happens next
Two processes now run in parallel. The criminal and tax investigation sits with the MPF and the Federal Revenue Service. The administrative proceedings sit with the SPA, which controls the authorisation Betnacional needs to operate. The second carries the sharper commercial risk, because the SPA can suspend or revoke a licence on its own timetable regardless of how the tax case resolves.
The case also sets a marker for the rest of the market. Many operators serving Brazilian players before regulation did so through offshore entities, and the question the Federal Revenue Service is now testing is whether those structures reflected where the business was really run. Enforcement against licensed operators is tightening in other regulated markets as well, with Ontario’s regulator recently fining NorthStar Gaming CA$100,000 over anti-money laundering failures.
For Flutter, a group that has treated Brazil as a growth market, the immediate cost is the blocked R$191 million and the disclosure risk attached to an active criminal investigation in one of its largest new territories.
Source: Federal Revenue Service
