ANJL and IBJR urge Brazil Supreme Court ruling on betting ban

The National Association of Games and Lotteries (ANJL) and the Brazilian Institute for Responsible Gaming (IBJR) filed an urgent petition on 26 October 2026 in Direct Action of Unconstitutionality (ADI) 8.027, asking Supreme Court justice Luiz Fux to rule the same day on their request for a preliminary measure against Provisional Measure 1.394/2026, which banned fixed-odds betting in Brazil. The petition runs to 24 pages with 12 annexes and is signed by six lawyers, among them Pietro Cardia Lorenzoni, Bernardo Cavalcanti Freire and Celso Cintra Mori. No decision by Fux was reported by the time the source was published.

The associations argue that, without a Supreme Court decision, the extinction of operator authorisations will take effect without any judicial body having examined the urgent request. Article 4 of the provisional measure extinguishes authorisations at the end of 30 days from publication on 25 September. The 30th day fell on Sunday 25 October; because it was not a working day, the petition cites article 132, paragraph 1, of the Civil Code to argue that the deadline was extended and that extinction takes effect only on Monday 26 October. Until then, the associations say, operators were barred from operating but still held valid authorisations, so contracts with clubs, broadcasters, suppliers and employees were largely only suspended; from extinction, the activity becomes unlawful for those companies. If Fux rules after that date, the associations ask that the decision have retroactive effect, as permitted by article 11, paragraph 1, of Law 9.868/1999.

The petition recounts that the sector approached four bodies, all of which pointed to the Supreme Court. On 22 October, judge Francisco Valle Brum of the 21st Federal Civil Court of the Federal District suspended ANJL's collective writ of mandamus until a later Supreme Court ruling. On 23 October, appellate judge Pablo Zuniga Dourado of the Federal Regional Court of the 1st Region maintained the suspension. On 9 October, the presidency of the Federal Regional Court of the 3rd Region, through appellate judge Johonsom di Salvo, overturned the only injunction granted to an operator, on the argument that the solution must be uniform for the whole market. In Acórdão 2.865/2026 of 21 October, the Federal Court of Accounts declined to hear a representation from the Public Ministry at the Court of Accounts seeking to postpone the ban to 31 December, because the matter is before the Supreme Court in ADI 8.027.

The petition cites the federal attorney general's office's own submissions. In its statement of 5 October in ADI 7.721, the office acknowledged that a regulated market coexists with a clandestine market of equivalent dimensions and estimated the illegal share at between 41% and 51% of the total. In the associations' reading, the provisional measure does not eliminate gambling but only the half the state supervises. The petition also notes that the office admitted controversy over the right to restitution of licensing fees and requested a new public hearing and the opinion of the prosecutor general's office, arguing that it is not coherent to hold a public hearing after the extinction of the market that is the subject of the hearing.

To support urgency, the petition updates figures on the clandestine market. Unauthorised domains online rose from 1,195 on the eve of the provisional measure to 3,348 on 15 October, according to the Bet Legal observatory series, while the number of blocked domains stayed at 1,997 over the same period. A technical note from LCA Consultoria Econômica dated 23 October indicates circulation more than six times higher than before the measure, though the consultancy notes that monitoring coverage was expanded in the period. The petition also says the official site brasilsembets.gov.br, to which the government redirected traffic from authorised platforms, was imitated by fraudsters at the domain brasilsembets.org, which charged a supposed 15% release tax via Pix. It further cites the International Betting Integrity Association as saying that the 25 alerts of suspicious betting in Brazilian sport in 2025 resulted from the work of licensed operators, and that without them no one is obliged to report suspicions.

The petition records that most of the 21 requests to join as amicus curiae support the preliminary measure, among them Sinafut, Flamengo, São Paulo, Fluminense and 15 further clubs, Abert, Abratel and the Brazilian Basketball Confederation. It cites more than R$1bn contributed by betting companies to Série A in 2025, equivalent to 34% of clubs' commercial revenues; at least 15,000 jobs at risk, with a payroll of about R$460m a year; about R$9.9bn in federal revenue associated with the sector in 2025; and R$4.5bn allocated to sport, public security, education, social security and health. It adds that 83 companies paid R$2.55bn for five-year licences, amounts the provisional measure declares non-refundable, which the petition calls a true confiscation.

The requests are staged. The associations first seek full suspension of the provisional measure until Congress deliberates or the merits are judged. Failing that, in order, they seek suspension at least until the public hearing and the prosecutor general's opinion; suspension only for holders of valid authorisations; or a transition until 23:59 on 31 December 2026, with the measure's deadlines running from 1 January 2027. The petition also asks that the Ministry of Finance, the Secretariat of Prizes and Betting, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, Anatel, the Central Bank, Caixa and CGI.br refrain from enforcement acts, and that the decision be communicated to the presidencies of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. It closes on an asymmetry argument: if the measure is suspended and later held constitutional, the ban is simply enforced later, but if the preliminary measure is refused and the measure falls, there will be no regulated market to restore.