Brazil Supreme Court justice cites legal certainty in betting decree hearing
Regulation2 min read
In brief
- Justice Luiz Fux opened a Supreme Court public hearing on Provisional Measure 1.394/2026, which banned fixed-odds betting.
- Fux said his personal view favouring a ban is one vote, not the court's.
- He cited legal certainty, legitimate expectations and the measure's urgency, and noted the court's practice of modulating decisions.
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Supreme Court Justice Luiz Fux opened the court's 52nd public hearing on Tuesday, called to discuss the effects of Provisional Measure 1.394/2026, which banned fixed-odds betting in Brazil. Fux is the rapporteur of the cases on the subject and spoke for about 35 minutes.
Fux restated his personal view that betting should be banned and said he had become convinced that compulsive gambling is a public health problem. He also stressed that this position is one vote and not the view of all the justices.
According to Fux, the measure raised arguments on legal certainty, on the non-retroactivity of law to perfected legal acts, and on the protection of legitimate expectations. He also cited questions over whether the measure met the relevance and urgency required for a provisional measure.
Fux said that, when ruling on unconstitutionality, the court checks whether an activity can be abolished abruptly. As an example he gave the São Paulo public defender's office case, in which the court declared unconstitutionality but allowed the state time to adapt.
The measure was published on 25 September and gave authorised companies ten days to end operations. It also ended paid five-year authorisations that the government had granted less than two years earlier.
Fux rejected criticism that he had invited only companies and football clubs to the hearing. He said the harms of betting had already been discussed at hearings on 11 and 12 November 2024 in cases ADI 7721 and ADI 7723. He explained that he had invited the Brazilian Supermarket Association (Abras), which says consumption rose after the ban, and the justice minister. Justice Minister Wellington César Lima e Silva then spoke and presented no data on the illegal market.
Fux said the request for review that interrupted the earlier judgment on gambling turned out to be positive, as he would not have wanted to rule on the issue during the election process. The next step may also depend on Congress, where the measure begins to lock the legislative agenda on 9 November. Fux also said he had received from First Lady Janja Lula da Silva a report on betting, which will be passed to the other justices.