Brazil's MP 1.394 revokes betting levies for public security

Brazil's Medida Provisória 1.394 of 25 September revoked articles 29 to 35 of Law 13.756/2018, the provisions that directed part of betting revenue to the National Public Security Fund (FNSP), the Federal Police and border monitoring, according to data. The measure prohibits fixed-odds betting. The report said the government has not explained where replacement funding for public security will come from.

Treasury Gerencial spreadsheets supplied by the Secretariat of Prizes and Betting of the Ministry of Finance (SPA-MF) and obtained through freedom-of-information requests showed that betting generated R$912.5m for public security between February 2025 and June 2026, the report said. Of that total, R$553.1m came in 2025 and R$359.4m in the first half of this year. More than half of the money entering the FNSP in the period, R$462.1m, was transferred to states, according to the report.

By law the fund also reserves at least 6% for measures against violence against women, including ankle monitors for offenders, and 10% to 15% for housing and quality of life for police officers, the report said.

On 30 July, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed a law allocating 1% of betting revenue to Funapol in 2026, rising to 3% from 2028, according to the report. The report said the fund, which had received about R$1.5m a month, received R$26.9m in May and R$26.0m in June after the new rule took effect in April by provisional measure. Fifty-seven days after the sanction, the same president eliminated the source, the report said.

At the pace of May and June, public security was receiving about R$75m a month from betting, which the report estimated at approximately R$900m a year that ceases to exist.

The SPA-MF's Panorama Periódico recorded that in 2025 the legal allocations of betting revenue totalled R$614.4m for public security and R$25.1m for Funapol, but R$553.1m reached the bodies' accounts, the report said. It attributed the difference mainly to the União Revenue Untying mechanism (DRU): the Treasury withheld 30% of the federal share of the FNSP, Sisfron and Funapol, moving it to free federal resources. The report estimated that about R$110m earmarked for security went elsewhere in 2025.

The report said the government's main proposal for the sector, the Public Security PEC, which reached the Senate in July, provides for 10% of betting revenue for the FNSP and the Penitentiary Fund in 2026, rising to 30% in 2028. With the prohibition, the report said, the amendment would share out revenue the government itself has eliminated, while betting migrates to the illegal market, which pays nothing to police.