Brazil’s Ministry of Finance told the Supreme Court (STF) yesterday (3 November) that the regulated betting market it built had been “a significant advancement,” while defending the ban that overturned it.
Opponents of the ban answered with the ministry’s own data, constitutional arguments and an alternative modelled on the federal lotteries run by state-owned bank Caixa.
The second part of yesterday’s hearing on Provisional Measure (MP) 1.394/2026, which banned fixed-odds betting, was led by rapporteur Justice Luiz Fux, who has eight constitutional challenges on the issue to judge.
Most of the Brazilian football clubs involved spoke in the morning session.
A significant advancement, but not enough
The Finance Ministry said licensing had improved state supervision, the fight against illegal operators and player protection, but that taxes, levies and self-exclusion tools had not contained the economic, social and health damage.
It estimated that bettors transferred around R$62bn (€10.2bn) to the sector and that the probability of default rises by almost 40% once people start betting. It put the hit to GDP at R$120bn to R$140bn, with more tax lost through household losses than collected. It cited no sources.
For operators and investors, the shift is important: rather than arguing that Brazil’s regulated market failed, the government is suggesting that no regulatory model is sufficient to deal with the problems associated with gambling.
The Health Ministry said people with gambling disorder face a 15 times higher suicide risk, citing a Swedish study of hospital patients.
ABLE: The numbers do not add up
The Brazilian Association for Economic Freedom (ABLE) turned the ministry’s own figures against it. Betting revenue was under 0.5% of household consumption, it said, against nearly R$700bn families paid in interest, and the claim that betting shrinks GDP was a mathematical impossibility. Its presentation drew the hearing’s first applause.
The sector also paid R$9.95bn in federal taxes and R$4.53bn in legal levies in 2025, according to official data.
AIGaming: Why not Caixa?
The International Gaming Association (AIGaming), which represents operators, offered the most direct alternative. If Caixa runs the federal lotteries, it asked, why not apply the same model to fixed-odds betting, “including through Caixa itself”?
Quoting Magno José, president of the Brazilian Institute for Legal Gaming (IJL), AIGaming representative said the real question is “who governs it: the state or illegality”. When the room applauded, Fux rebuked the audience, saying those present should remain impartial.
Opening a joint slot for operator and lottery associations, the National Association of Games and Lotteries (ANJL) accepted that there is no constitutional right to run betting, but said more than 20 years of prohibition had failed, citing pre-regulation data from Lenad III, a national drug survey. It tried to show live how easily illegal sites can be reached, but Fux did not allow it.
Mayors: “Electoral convenience is not urgency”
The National Association of Mayors and Deputy Mayors (ANPV), which has filed its own challenge (ADI 8028), said the MP breaches Brazil’s federal pact by extinguishing state lottery concessions, whose legality the STF upheld in 2020.
Signed nine days before the presidential first round, they argue it also fails the urgency test required for a provisional measure: “Electoral convenience is not constitutional urgency.” Licences that cost operators R$30m were extinguished without refund, an effect the ANPV called confiscatory.
IBJR: ending the wrong market
The Brazilian Institute for Responsible Gaming (IBJR) delivered one of the afternoon’s sharpest attacks. “I did not hear anyone here, all afternoon, say they will end illegal gambling. What I heard is that they want to end regulated gambling,” it said.
The MP, it argued, “undoes contracts signed in good faith and leaves Congress a fait accompli: by the time lawmakers vote, the damage will be done.” It asked Fux to suspend the MP.
ABERT: a regulatory paradox
ABERT, which represents more than 2,500 radio and TV stations, said complaints to advertising self-regulator Conar about illegal betting ads rose from 2.3 a day before the MP to 8.5 afterwards.
The ban, it said, created a regulatory paradox: the state curbs advertising that followed rules, loses the ability to police illegal ads, and gives up tax revenue while still paying to fight the clandestine market.
Sport: funding and integrity
The Sports Ministry, the last speaker, did not address the ban, but its report on match-fixing showed how much of its work depends on licensing. Its integrity rules, odds monitoring with IBIA, Sportradar and Genius Sports, the training of 482 police officers and a national anti-match-fixing policy, the only one in Latin America, were all built on the regulated market the MP abolished.
The ministry itself noted that Brazilian competitions can be targeted through betting platforms based abroad.
“Brazil,” it added, “is the only country in the Americas to have joined the Council of Europe’s Macolin Convention on the issue.”
Who stood where
|
Backing the ban |
Against the ban |
No position |
|
Finance Ministry |
ABLE (economic freedom) |
Olympic Committee (COB) |
|
Health Ministry |
AIGaming (operators) |
Sports Ministry |
|
Justice Ministry secretariats: public security, digital rights, consumer protection |
ANJL (games and lotteries) |
Prosecutor General’s Office (PGR) |
|
CNC (commerce) |
ANSEJA (legal certainty in gaming) |
UERJ Reg (university regulation lab) |
|
CNI (industry) |
IBJR (responsible gaming) |
|
|
Abras (supermarkets) |
Abracopel (state lottery concessionaires) |
|
|
|
ABERT (broadcasters) |
|
|
|
ANPV (mayors) |
|
|
|
ABRACRIM (criminal lawyers) |
|
|
|
Paralympic Committee (CPB) |
|
|
|
ENDR (sport levies) |
|
What comes next
The Prosecutor General’s Office (PGR), which challenged the 2023 betting law in 2024, took no position, saying it has yet to review the cases against the MP.
Closing the hearing, Fux said the STF sometimes lacks the institutional capacity to settle such disputes and that a court’s virtue can be to leave the decision to the proper forum. If the court has to rule, he will share the hearing’s findings with his fellow justices.
In a related case on land-based gambling, a plenary judgment was paused in August when Justice Flávio Dino asked for online betting to be judged alongside it; his 90-day review ends in early November.
In Congress, the MP’s 60-day period ends on 23 November and is extended automatically, pushing the deadline for a vote into early 2027.
Dingnews.com 05/11/2026