Unanimously, the 8th Chamber of Private Law of the Court of Justice of São Paulo determined the conviction of a sports betting site to pay a prize of R$ 119 thousand to a user whose guess was not registered on the platform due to an error in the system.
The plaintiff stated that she made the payment of BRL 40.00, on December 9, 2020, being qualified to line up two teams on the platform of the defendant company, and thus compete for the award for the 25th round of the Brazilian Championship of that year.
At the end of the matches, the score reached by the author would guarantee first place in the league organized by the company, but the woman discovered that her bet was not ranked. After several attempts to solve the problem through administrative channels, she went to court.
The rapporteur, Judge Silvério da Silva, dismissed the defendant’s thesis that it was a question of collecting a bet debt and said that the company “could not invoke its own turpitude to excuse itself from responsibility before the plaintiff”. “It is worth mentioning that sports betting through virtual means is provided for in Law 13.756/2018.”
According to the magistrate, the question does not refer to the collection of gambling debt, but a repair of material damage due to the loss of the person. “The author made the payment, whose registration would be automatic, reached a score above the list indicated by the website and was not included among the winners, which demonstrates failure in the provision of the service”.
Regulation of the sports betting sector in Brazil
It is worth mentioning that the sports betting market still does not have regulation in Brazil. The deadline for defining a set of rules for the sector expired in December last year and the global industry is still waiting for a resolution at the national level.
