Regis Anderson Dudena was appointed to lead Brazil’s newly created Secretariat of Prizes and Betting (SPA) in April 2024, shortly after the unit was formally established under the Ministry of Finance to be Brazil’s betting regulator.
With his move now confirmed to the Secretariat of Economic Reforms (SRE) within the same ministry, Dudena leaves the SPA after overseeing its formative phase, during which the regulator transitioned from institutional setup to full market supervision.
2024: Building the regulator
The SPA was tasked with regulating fixed-odds betting, online gaming, lotteries and commercial promotion.
During this period, the Secretariat issued a series of decrees, ordinances and normative instructions defining licensing criteria, compliance obligations, technical standards and enforcement powers.
2025: First full year of a regulated market
In 2025, the SPA entered its first complete year of market oversight. Under Dudena’s leadership, 79 operators were authorized to operate legally in Brazil, providing the Federal Government with visibility over betting volumes, user profiles and operator behavior.
One of the most visible milestones was the launch of the Centralized Self-Exclusion Platform, allowing players to block themselves from all licensed betting sites simultaneously.
The SPA also introduced rules and tools preventing recipients of certain social benefits from accessing betting platforms, reinforcing the Government’s position that regulated betting should not intersect with welfare programs.
2025: Enforcement and illegal market action
Enforcement became a defining feature of Dudena’s tenure through agreements with industry bodies.
The SPA established coordinated processes to detect and block illegal betting websites. By early 2026, more than 25,000 unlicensed sites had been blocked.
Parallel to this, the SPA also has cooperation agreements with major digital platforms and national marketing regulators to combat illegal and irregular betting advertising.
2025: Market outcomes and economic footprint
By the end of 2025, Brazil’s regulated betting market reported GGR of approximately BR37bn ($9.95bn), generating BR4.5bn in mandatory legal allocations for areas such as health, sport, public security and tourism. These figures reinforced the Government’s framing of betting as a source of earmarked public funding.
2026: Transition and next phase
Dudena was officially appointed Secretary of Economic Reforms at the Ministry of Finance, closing his chapter at the SPA.
Potential successors include deputy secretary Daniele Correa Cardoso and monitoring and enforcement lead Fabio Macorin.
His exit also marked the end of the SPA’s formative phase. The regulator now enters a period focused less on rule creation and more on consistency, enforcement depth and market consolidation.
At the SRE, Dudena will take on a broader economic policy mandate and will shift from sector-specific regulation to structural reform initiatives within the Finance Ministry.
He stated that he was leaving the Secretariat confident that the institutional work would continue to advance.
He highlighted the performance of the deputy secretary, Daniele Correa Cardoso, and the SPA team, emphasizing their technical capacity and commitment to protecting consumers and the popular economy.
"I leave with the conviction that the Secretariat will continue to fulfill its role and strengthen itself, provided that the agents in the sector understand the public responsibility involved in providing this service," Dudena concluded.
More than 217,000 Brazilians have opted out of betting platforms through the federal self-exclusion system during
