A São Paulo court ruling against bet365 has brought renewed attention to how sportsbooks settle statistics-based markets when data providers and official competition records do not agree.
HS do Brasil Ltda, which operates bet365 in Brazil, was ordered to pay an unnamed customer for five betting slips that had been settled as losses. The dispute involved assist markets from two Serie A matches played in November 2025: Fiorentina against Lecce and Parma against Bologna.
The customer had backed Tete Morente, Adrian Benedyczak and Nicolò Cambiaghi to record assists. Official Serie A match reports credited the players with the assists, while bet365 settled the wagers as losing selections because Opta, the data provider used for those markets, had not recorded them.
The decision was issued on 14 September by Daniela Nudeliman Guiguet Leal of the Second Civil Court of Barueri. The judge accepted that bet365’s terms specified Opta as the relevant statistics provider and that the customer was aware of that condition. However, the court found that this alone did not resolve the dispute.
Court Focuses on How Settlement Criteria Were Applied
The central issue was not whether Serie A data should automatically replace Opta statistics. Instead, the court examined whether bet365 had demonstrated that its stated settlement rules had actually been applied correctly to the disputed plays.
The ruling found that simply informing the customer that Opta had classified an event in a certain way was insufficient. Bet365 was expected to provide the technical basis for the classification, such as explaining why a play was treated as a cross rather than an assist, or why a deflection was considered significant enough to remove an assist from the official statistical outcome used for settlement.
Because the operator did not provide sufficient evidence showing how those criteria were applied, the court identified a failure in the provision of the service and ordered payment on the five disputed betting slips. The final amount will be determined during the enforcement stage of the case.
Bet365 has until 7 October 2026 to appeal the ruling to a higher court.
Brazilian betting lawyer Bruno Rodrigues, who specialises in representing customers, told SBC Notícias Brasil that the case illustrates the need for operators to explain how statistical criteria are applied when a settlement is challenged. He said the use of an external data provider does not remove the operator’s responsibility to provide a clear technical explanation to the customer.
Different Data Providers Create Settlement Challenges
The dispute also highlights a wider issue across modern sportsbook products, particularly player props and bet-builder markets that rely on detailed performance statistics.
Opta, owned by Stats Perform, is widely used across the betting industry. SBC News noted that operators including bet365, Sky Bet, Paddy Power, Betfair, Ladbrokes, William Hill, Unibet and BoyleSports have used Opta data, while Stats Perform also works with major sports organisations including FIFA and covers more than 500,000 matches annually.
However, leagues may use different official betting-data suppliers. In August 2025, Genius Sports secured exclusive rights to distribute official betting-related data and video for Serie A, Coppa Italia and Supercoppa Italiana through the end of the 2028/29 season. Genius became the sole authorised distributor of Serie A’s real-time betting data after Stats Perform’s previous agreement with the competition ended.
That creates the possibility of different providers applying different statistical definitions to the same match event. Assists are one example, but similar disputes can arise in markets involving shots, passes, tackles, corners and other performance statistics.
Rodrigues argued that operators should therefore be able to demonstrate how their chosen provider reached a particular classification rather than relying only on the provider’s name as justification. The Brazilian ruling similarly did not require courts to replace Opta or select a preferred statistical source; it focused on whether the operator could show that its existing rules had been properly followed.
Transparency Becomes Central to Statistical Betting Markets
The case is significant because increasingly complex sportsbook products depend on external data feeds to settle thousands of markets quickly and consistently.
For operators, the ruling reinforces the importance of clearly identifying the source used for settlement and being able to explain how that source’s methodology was applied when a customer disputes the result.
For customers, it demonstrates that a reference to an external data provider may not automatically settle a disagreement when official competition records show a different outcome.
As statistical betting markets continue to expand, the bet365 case shows how inconsistencies between official league records and commercial data feeds can become legal and consumer-protection issues when the settlement process is not sufficiently transparent.