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Continuing its evaluation of the Bets regime, the Senate’s Commission Inquiry has held its liveliest testimony yet, hosting social media influencer Virginia Fonseca.
A headline-grabbing session of high-jinks and drama underscored both the cultural prominence of online gambling among Brazil’s Gen-Z consumers and the state’s responsibility to protect under-24s from excessive behaviours.
Fonseca, a YouTube-born personality turned beauty and lifestyle mogul, commands an online following in excess of 50 million across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
For Western audiences, her fame is perhaps best explained through the lens of Kylie Jenner as a young female entrepreneur making a lucrative living from sponsored content to consumer goods.
“Optics Always Matter”
In 2024, her company WePink recorded revenues of R$750m (€115m), a figure she offered unprompted during her closing remarks to the Commission.
“I haven’t become a millionaire with gambling,” she insisted. “My company, Wepink, turned over R$750 million in 2024. As for betting ads, I’ll go home and think about it… you can count on that.”
Her income was never in question, however. Fonseca arrived at the inquiry dressed casually in a sweatshirt bearing her daughter’s face and a pink water bottle in hand, prior to proceedings she told the media that “optics always matter”.
Her appearance came at the request of senators investigating the influence of celebrities in promoting online gambling platforms, particularly in the years before Brazil formalised regulation under Law No. 14,790, the framework to launch the Bets Regime as of 1 January 2025.
Continuing its inquiry, the CPI of Bets has called into question the role of platforms like Blaze and Esportes da Sorte, operators that signed marketing deals with Brazilian influencers during the “legal limbo prior to regulation.”
Officials need to determine whether marketing practices knowingly targeted minors or vulnerable audiences prior to the existence of the Bets market, and whether retroactive penalties can be applied on illicit marketing activities.
Influencer probed on Influence
Pressed on her past content, particularly a 2022 video promoting a betting operator, Fonseca was visibly irked. “Get a recent video, Soraya! You’re pulling up one from 2022, for goodness sake. “
“CONAR [National Advertising Self-Regulation Council] didn’t even have any rules back then,” Fonseca snapped at Senator Soraya Thronicke, the inquiry’s rapporteur. Chastised by the Commission Chair, Fonseca later walked back her tone.
“I want to apologise for getting upset,” she said. “At the time of that video, there were no CONAR requirements. I now understand the data you’ve presented. I’ll leave here reflective.”
Influencers under spotlight as grey market impact lingers. Brazil’s current Bets regime requires all advertising to carry responsible gambling messages, prohibits the targeting of minors, and bans misleading claims. Licensed incumbents must comply with marketing restrictions set by the rules of CONAR.
But even before the ink dried on the legislation, the CPI has been unearthing examples of social media influencers promoting betting platforms using “demo” accounts, often displaying unrealistic or exaggerated winnings.
Fonseca denied any such practices in her case. She insisted that she only followed a script provided by the brands, that she did not use her personal account for promotional footage, and that any appearance of playing was based on mock or platform-supplied accounts. Her understanding of these technical details, however, appeared limited.
When asked whether she used a demo account, she confessed she did not know what that meant. “I’m speaking for myself — I don’t know how other influencers operate. I always make it clear. Normally I do three stories. In two I speak, and in one I show how to play,” she explained.
Particularly contentious was whether her contracts included a so-called “cláusula da desgraça alheia” — a “misery clause” tying influencer commission to player losses. Fonseca denied any such arrangement.
“My contract offered 30% more if I doubled the company’s profit, which never happened. It was a fixed amount, unrelated to followers’ losses,” she said. She further claimed to have refused all proposals from unlicensed operators.
Going Viral
Her defence, however, did little to pacify critics. To some senators, her ignorance appeared convenient. To others, she was merely a reflection of a wider cultural trend in which Gen-Z celebrities, often with minimal regulatory training, are enlisted as brand ambassadors for high-risk products be it gambling, crypto or credit loans.
The response to her testimony has been sharply divided. Supporters praised her willingness to appear and her ultimate contrition. Detractors dismissed the appearance as a publicity stunt — more spectacle than substance. On social media, snippets of her exchange with Senator Thronicke went viral, feeding into Brazil’s increasingly televised political discourse.
“MY GOD IN HEAVEN! Soraya hit the nail on the head with that question to Virginia. HELP. This CPI is turning into quite the show,” wrote one commentator on X (formerly Twitter).
It is difficult to say what legislative impact the testimony will have. Against this backdrop, the Brazilian Senate is reviewing two distinct bills aimed at establishing a statutory framework for gambling advertising. PL 2,985/2023, tabled by Senator Styvenson Valentim, proposes a sweeping ban on gambling advertisements across all media channels.
In contrast, PL 3,405/2023 adopts a more moderate stance, requiring prior regulatory approval for advertising campaigns and prohibiting the use of public figures — including athletes, celebrities, and influencers in any form of endorsement.
For now, Fonseca’s appearance will be remembered less for legal clarity and more for viral optics. A social media celebrity testifying to the Senate in a family-themed hoodie about demo accounts and performance bonuses sums up the complexity of regulating online gambling safely. The hijinks made headlines, but whether they shape the future of Brazil’s gambling reform remains another open question for Brazil’s lawmakers.
