The CPI (Parliamentary Inquiry Commission) on Bets is drawing a lot of attention from people across the country, mainly because it has summoned famous influencers with large followings, such as Virginia Fonseca, to testify. However, we need to look beyond the surface and conduct a deeper analysis, because behind yet another scandal, we must evaluate issues such as ethical failures and leadership.
Although the scenario involves betting, I believe the lessons emerging from this crisis—which could have very serious consequences for those involved—are highly relevant to the corporate world. The way leaders—or their absence—contribute to environments permissive of ethical misconduct raises a red flag for managers and companies across all sectors.
The CPI made it evident how the lack of oversight of these platforms, especially regarding those who promote them, can spiral out of control, leading to significant losses. In companies, similar failures can result in fraud, corruption, misappropriation of resources, and illegal decisions made in the name of profit. These deviations almost always reflect management that ignores ethical risks or fails to set a proper example.
It’s worth noting that leadership goes beyond making strategic decisions and involves being a role model for conduct. In the Bets CPI, we saw how the absence of responsible leadership created space for questionable practices. In the corporate world, leaders who fail to closely monitor processes or even tacitly condone irregularities end up sowing the seeds for future crises.
Companies that have faced scandals often have something in common: leadership that ignored warnings and/or encouraged wrong practices. When the top is corrupt or negligent, the rest of the organization tends to follow the same path. Additionally, an excessive focus on aggressive targets can create an environment where the ends justify the means. When ethics are not prioritized, employees may seek ‘shortcuts’ to meet goals, even if it involves reprehensible practices.
The question every leader should ask themselves is: ‘Are we rewarding performance, even when it comes at the cost of integrity?’ The CPI is not just a legal case—it serves as a warning about what happens when there is a lack of integrity culture, leaders are not attentive to details, control structures are weak or nonexistent, and no one feels accountable for the whole.
The Bets CPI reminds us that punishing misconduct is not enough—we must prevent its origins, which often lie in negligent, complicit, or unprepared leadership. It is up to leaders to choose whether they will play fair or not. In the end, a company’s reputation is built by the daily choices of its leaders and destroyed when those choices neglect the most basic value of all: integrity.
