Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court schedules hearing on municipal lotteries

Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF) has scheduled the ADPF 1212 case for a plenary session on 4 November, the court's president, minister Edson Fachin, said. The case, filed by the party Solidariedade in March 2025 and reported by minister Nunes Marques, challenges municipal laws and decrees that created lotteries, draws and betting systems. A nationwide interim order suspending municipal rules, related procurement and operating activities remains in force pending the court's review.

Solidariedade argues that the municipal rules breach the Union's exclusive competence to legislate on consortium and draw systems under article 22, XX, of the Constitution. The party also cites the federative principle under article 19, III, and free competition under article 170, IV. The action names 13 municipal instruments, including laws in São Vicente, Guarulhos, Campinas, São Paulo city and Poá in São Paulo state; Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais; Anápolis and Caldas Novas in Goiás; Foz do Iguaçu in Paraná; Pelotas and a decree in Porto Alegre in Rio Grande do Sul; Bodó in Rio Grande do Norte; and Miguel Pereira in Rio de Janeiro state.

On 3 December 2025, Nunes Marques granted an interim order with nationwide effect, subject to plenary review. It suspended municipal normative acts that created lotteries and sports betting, the procurement and accreditation arising from them, and all operations in progress, and ordered activities to end immediately, including at companies already accredited by municipalities. Non-compliance carries a daily fine of R$500,000 for municipalities and companies and R$50,000 for mayors and operators' presidents. The review began in the virtual plenary but a request by minister Flávio Dino sent the case to a physical session.

The case has 14 amici curiae: six states, four associations, Caixa, a confederation, a municipalist entity and a municipality. The states of Paraná, Santa Catarina, Espírito Santo, Rondônia, Maranhão and São Paulo argue jointly that Law 14.790/2023 added article 35-A to Law 13.756/2018, covering lottery operation by states and the Federal District without mentioning municipalities, so residual competence under article 25, paragraph 1, of the Constitution is only state-level. São Paulo awarded its state lottery to the private sector and Paraná operates through Lottopar. Caixa said in a technical submission in May that no municipal lottery is certified by the World Lottery Association and that the number of regulators would rise from 28 to more than 5,500, which it said would make oversight and standardised reporting to Coaf unworkable.

ANALOME, representing municipalities, argues that the 2020 rulings in ADPF 492 and ADPF 493 removed the Union's monopoly on lottery operation, and that municipalities, as autonomous federative entities, may also operate the service. The association says the absence of municipalities from Law 14.790/2023 does not amount to a prohibition, that an ordinary federal law cannot remove another entity's constitutional competences, and that isolated irregularities should be corrected by control bodies without removing the competence of all municipalities. ANSEJA and the municipality of Itaquaquecetuba take the same position.

The plenary may confirm the interim order and rule on the merits in the same session, confirm only the interim measure and leave the merits for later, or modulate the effects of the decision. The central issue is the boundary between legislative and material competence, a distinction ANALOME defends and which the interim order rejected by classifying lottery services as national and regional in character. Another point is the fate of contracts already signed with operators accredited by municipalities; since the action was filed, dozens of municipalities have created their own lotteries. The public hearing in ADI 8027, called by minister Luiz Fux, is scheduled for 3 November, the day before the ADPF 1212 session.