The Division for the Suppression of Illegal Betting and Sports Manipulation (DRAME) was established by Ordinance MJSP No. 1,325, of October 9, and will have an affiliated Betting Analysis Service (SEAAP), according to the Official Gazette.
DRAME is housed within the new General Coordination for Anti-Money Laundering and Asset Recovery, subordinate to the Federal Police’s directorate for combating organized crime and corruption.
With this setup, the fight against illegal betting becomes linked to the agency’s work on money laundering, financial intelligence, and asset recovery.
What changes at the Federal Police
The Federal Police had already been working on the issue through Base Apostas, a group created in May to investigate results manipulation and betting fraud. DRAME gives this work a permanent place in the structure.
The final design differs from the Federal Police’s original proposal to the ministry, reported earlier in the month, which envisioned two separate divisions: one for illegal betting and another for results manipulation. The ordinance combines the two issues into a single unit.
The ordinance defines leadership functions for permanent staff members and does not create new positions nor call for a civil service exam, according to the Official Gazette.
The ban on bets
The reorganization comes after Provisional Measure No. 1,394/2026, issued on September 25, which banned fixed-odds betting in the country.
The Provisional Measure is valid for 60 days, extendable for another 60, with the count suspended during the parliamentary recess, and Congress must decide whether to convert it into law.
Before the Provisional Measure, operations without authorization from the Secretariat of Prizes and Betting (SPA), under the Ministry of Finance, were considered illegal. With the measure, the offering of these products is now prohibited throughout the country.
Federal Police funding from betting revenue is also at stake.
A law enacted on July 30 allocates to the Fund for Equipping and Operationalizing the Federal Police’s Core Activities (Funapol) 1% of betting revenue in 2026, 2% in 2027, and 3% from 2028 onward, in addition to up to R$200 million from the Treasury this year. It is still unclear how MP 1,394 affects these transfers.
How other jurisdictions structure this function
The structure differs from the models in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, where units dedicated to betting integrity are linked to the gambling regulatory body.
The UK Gambling Commission (Gambling Commission) maintains a Sports Betting Intelligence Unit that acts as the hub of its national match-fixing prevention platform and shares information with the police, since offenses such as bribery and fraud fall outside its legal investigative powers, according to the regulator.
The Dutch gambling authority, the KSA, created a unit with the same name and has no authority to detect results manipulation, but it oversees whether operators take action on reports received.
DRAME, on the other hand, is linked to the Federal Police, under an anti-money laundering coordination.
DRAME’s creation comes after the Provisional Measure signed by President Lula on September 25, and before the second round of the presidential elections, which will take place on October 25.