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An Instagram ad claimed Betano was back in Brazil. It was a clone with a fake App Store. How it worked and what it means for any operator.
In late October, a sponsored Instagram ad claimed that Betano, the sports betting platform, was back in Brazil and stronger than ever. The ad wasn't from Betano. It led to a clone with an almost identical name, the same colors and the same design, then to a fake app store, and finally to a Pix deposit (Brazil's instant payment system) that ended up with a company that had nothing to do with betting.
BNLData, a Brazilian gambling news outlet, documented it: its team signed up on the advertised site and followed the deposit all the way through. The case shows an impersonation from start to finish, and almost nothing that makes it work is unique to Brazil.
Betano held the naming rights to Brazil's Série A championship and the Copa do Brasil, and was Flamengo's main sponsor, according to Focus Gaming News. Since October 6, it no longer operates in Brazil, following a government measure that bans fixed-odds betting in the country, according to Agência Senado.
BNLData found Instagram ads labeled "Sponsored" that presented themselves as Betano. The clearest example led to Betamos, a site with Betano's name, color, stylized "B" and design, hosted on a different domain. One of the ads showed a man in a Betano shirt pulling the Flamengo crest out of a box, next to a download button.
Once they tapped the ad, players landed on a page that imitated Apple's App Store, complete with an icon, an install button, a 4.7 rating, an 18+ age rating and a developer with a blue verification badge. None of it was Apple's store. The page asked users to add the site to their home screen and used a 500% bonus as bait.
The BNLData team signed up and simulated a 20-real deposit. The Pix code pointed to a commercial company with no connection to betting. The journalist stopped the transaction before confirming the payment.
The clone's campaign ran on Betano's investment. Flamengo, the shirt and the orange are years of sponsorship and advertising, and the clone turned them into its best creative. It didn't even try to hide it: the campaign's internal name, visible in the link, included "flamengo" and "3ceo_betano". The more work goes into a brand, the more appealing it becomes to anyone looking to copy it.
Nor did it wait for anyone to search for the brand. The ad went looking for the player, with campaigns targeting fans of specific clubs and Brazilian audiences. And it took them to an "app" that never went through a store or through Apple's or Google's review, like the ones we looked at in our article on fake casino apps.
That's why checking what shows up when people search for your brand, or monitoring app stores, isn't enough when the impersonation arrives in an ad nobody searched for and ends in a store that doesn't exist.
Players who fall for one of these clones have no one to complain to. But the bad experience can end up tied to the original brand, the one they thought they were using. Companies in the industry are flagging it themselves: an association representing betting operators in Brazil warns about pages that use names and visual identities similar to those of well-known brands, Betano among them, with bonus offers to lure players.
The most practical advice came from another operators' association, which asked its members to report every cloned site of their brands they detect and notify the authorities. In other words, documenting every impersonation is now part of protecting the brand.
Nothing that made this clone work is unique to one country. A visible sponsorship, a sponsored ad, a page that imitates a store and a payment to a third party can be set up against any well-known brand.
In a case like this, the work starts with spotting it in time and documenting it properly. That's what Smart Protection does with anti-impersonation and ads control: detecting unauthorized use of the brand in app stores, websites and ads, validating each case and requesting its removal from the platform, which makes the final call.
A clone doesn't need to outdo a brand. It only needs to look like it wherever players are already looking. The question for any operator isn't whether it could happen to them, but whether they'd find out in time.
Do you know who's advertising with your brand today, and where they're sending your players?
