The Offshore Chain Behind a State Lottery Licence: Brazilian Federal Police Ask Supreme Court to Investigate Whether BestBet Has an Undisclosed Shareholder

File photo: Brazil’s National Congress in Brasília, 20 May 2007. Used as institutional background to a report involving a Brazilian senator; it does not show BestBet, the Supreme Court, a police operation or the events reported here. Photo: Mario Roberto Duran Ortiz / Wikimedia Commons; photograph released into the public domain. Architecture: Oscar Niemeyer. Image source.

Brazil’s Federal Police (PF) have asked the Federal Supreme Court (STF) to open an investigation into whether presidential candidate and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro is an undisclosed shareholder in online betting platform BestBet. Brazilian magazine piauí first disclosed the news on October 20, followed by reporting from Folha de S.Paulo the next day. The Federal Police report is classified and has not been made public. This article has not obtained the original document; the relevant information is cited indirectly from those media reports.

There is already considerable political controversy. For the industry, another aspect of the case deserves closer attention: how a company with registered capital of R$1 million obtained a licence from Rio de Janeiro’s state lottery authority, then used that state licence to operate nationwide until the federal government and the Supreme Court intervened to stop it.

From Madeira to a Rio de Janeiro State Licence

According to company documents examined by piauí, lawyer Willer Tomaz established Cathedral Holdings in Funchal, the capital of Portugal’s Madeira island, in January 2023 with capital of €50,000. In February that year, his business group established Rede Loto Ltda in São Paulo with capital of R$1 million. Its public-facing brand was BestBet, and it was controlled by Cathedral.

At the time, Brazil’s federal sports-betting regulations had not yet been implemented. The Supreme Court had previously ruled that state lottery authorities could operate gambling businesses themselves. Rio de Janeiro’s state lottery authority, Loterj, subsequently opened a tender in April 2023 and issued operating permits to 13 companies in May. BestBet was among them. Citing earlier reporting by Folha de S.Paulo, piauí said that Loterj president Hazenclever Cançado, who issued the permits, had been recommended for the position by Flávio Bolsonaro.

In July that year, with Loterj’s permission, BestBet began serving users nationwide rather than only in Rio de Janeiro state. This practice of “a state licence, nationwide sales” later became the focus of litigation between the federal government and Loterj.

After the Licence’s Scope Was Narrowed

In July 2024, the federal government began implementing uniform nationwide regulation of online betting and required Loterj to stop platforms holding only a Rio de Janeiro state licence from operating nationwide. Loterj applied to the Federal Regional Court of the First Region (TRF1) and obtained an interim injunction in its favour. The federal government subsequently appealed and brought proceedings before the Supreme Court. In January 2025, Supreme Court Justice André Mendonça ruled that BestBet could operate only within Rio de Janeiro state.

According to piauí, BestBet ceased operations in mid-2025.

Two Shell Companies and a Bank Account

The Federal Police’s attention is focused on another company besides Cathedral: Alcazar Holdings. According to piauí, Alcazar is also based in Madeira, has the same owner and manager as Cathedral, and is registered in the same office, number 105, in the same building. When the magazine’s reporters visited on October 16, they found no signs that either company actually operated there. On paper, Cathedral had only one employee, while Alcazar had none.

The two companies’ accounts also align. Financial records that piauí obtained from business information company Iberinform show that Cathedral’s receivables jumped from €7,800 in the previous year to €984,000 in 2025. Over the same period, Alcazar’s liabilities rose from €8,100 to €824,000. A Portuguese tax inspector, speaking anonymously to the magazine, said Cathedral “may have financed Alcazar in whole or in part”.

According to O Globo and G1, citing the Federal Police report, when Alcazar opened an account at Santander, Flávio Bolsonaro was registered as the account’s “master user” (usuário master), with permission to view transactions, manage other users and authorise transfers. On May 22, 2025, an employee of Tomaz wrote to the bank requesting that Flávio Bolsonaro be removed from this role. The report said that this, “considered together with other identified connections, supports the hypothesis of de facto economic or equity participation in the company”. On that basis, the Federal Police asked the Supreme Court to open an investigation into whether he was an undisclosed shareholder in BestBet.

Piauí also cited a Federal Police report saying investigators suspected that Tomaz’s accounts operated “as a hub for concentrating, moving and redistributing funds to third parties”.

The Accounts Given by the Parties Conflict

In a statement to the media, Tomaz denied all the allegations, saying Flávio Bolsonaro “has never been a direct or indirect shareholder in BestBet”, that the two men “have never shared bank accounts”, and that the magazine had “distorted documents”. He said the Federal Police had opened a separate investigation into the officers who leaked classified information. Flávio Bolsonaro’s campaign team did not respond to Folha de S.Paulo’s request for comment. It had previously said that the two men were only friends and that the suspicions had “no factual basis whatsoever”.

But the accounts given by the parties clearly do not match on whether BestBet actually operated:

Tomaz previously told Folha de S.Paulo that BestBet “never began operating a betting business”.

Folha de S.Paulo found that Internet Archive records showed bestbet.com.br had been online since at least December 2023. Loterj regulatory documents showed that the company had paid a variable concession fee equivalent to 5% of gambling revenue since June 2023.

Piauí’s account is that BestBet initially operated nationwide and did not close until mid-2025.

According to Folha de S.Paulo, a shareholders’ resolution that Rede Loto registered with the São Paulo commercial registry on February 3 this year approved the distribution of accumulated profits as of December 31, 2025. No amount was stated, and Cathedral was the sole beneficiary.

A company that “never began operating” paying revenue-linked concession fees and distributing accumulated profits presents contradictions that require further explanation from Tomaz’s side.

What This Means for the Industry

This is the second recent instance in Brazil in which the same individual has brought a gambling platform to the centre of an investigation. A technical note from the Finance Ministry’s Secretariat of Prizes and Betting (SPA), disclosed earlier this month, identified Tomaz as the individual with the highest total deposits and withdrawals on licensed platforms in 2025, pointing to anti-money-laundering failures at Blaze. This time, the question has shifted from “did the platform keep its major customer under control?” to “who is really behind the licence?”

Licences issued by state lottery authorities during the federal regulatory vacuum of 2023–2024 often had ownership structures held through offshore companies, and there was no uniform review of ultimate beneficial owners at the time. The BestBet case shows that the historical accounts behind this group of licences may still be brought to light one by one. Separately, according to piauí, Brazil’s federal government banned fixed-odds betting through a provisional measure in September this year, and the owners of several online betting platforms have sided with Flávio Bolsonaro, betting that he would overturn the ban if elected. This has drawn an old case originally concerning state lottery regulation directly into the ongoing presidential election campaign.

It should be noted that there is currently no public information on whether the Supreme Court has approved the opening of an investigation. The Federal Police report presents investigative hypotheses, not a finding of guilt.

Sources

Piauí, “A bet de Flávio Bolsonaro”, October 20, 2026: https://piaui.uol.com.br/web/best-bet-flavio-bolsonaro-willer-tomaz/

Folha de S.Paulo, “PF investiga se Flávio Bolsonaro é sócio oculto de bet, diz revista”, October 21, 2026: https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mercado/2026/10/pf-investiga-se-flavio-bolsonaro-e-socio-oculto-de-bet-diz-revista.shtml

O Globo, Federal Police report details connections between Flávio and Willer Tomaz, October 20, 2026: https://oglobo.globo.com/politica/noticia/2026/10/20/rede-de-empresas-aplicativo-que-destroi-mensagens-e-viagens-em-jatinho-pf-aponta-vinculos-entre-flavio-e-willer-tomaz.ghtml

G1, reporting on the “usuário master” designation, October 14, 2026: https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2026/10/14/flavio-bolsonaro-foi-cadastrado-como-usuario-master-em-conta-bancaria-de-empresa-de-advogado-investigado.ghtml

Note: This article has not obtained the originals of the Federal Police report, Loterj regulatory documents or Rede Loto shareholders’ resolution. Their contents are cited indirectly from the media reports above.