Brazil’s STF receives opposing filings on fixed-odds betting: one seeks amicus curiae status, the other wants the case paused for Congress

The Supreme Federal Court (STF) got two filings on September 4 in the constitutional challenge to Brazil’s fixed-odds betting framework: one from Instituto Moderação, which wants into the case as amicus curiae, and another from ABERT, which is asking the Court to suspend the judgment until Congress finishes debating a new law. For PSPs and operators, the point is simple: the legal fight is no longer just about betting rules on paper, but about how much protection the current regime actually has to show for itself.

1. The case is Ação Direta de Inconstitucionalidade No. 7.749/DF, filed by the Procurator-General of the Republic against provisions of Law No. 13.756/2018 and Law No. 14.790/2023. The claim is that the framework provides insufficient protection for users’ mental health, especially in light of addiction risk and pathological gambling disorder. Justice Luiz Fux is the rapporteur.
2. Instituto Moderação filed an internal appeal against Fux’s August 27, 2026 decision refusing its admission as an amicus curiae. The decision was published in the Diário da Justiça Eletrônico on August 31, and the deadline for the appeal ran until September 8, with the national holiday on September 7 excluded from the count.
3. In the same ruling, Fux admitted PDT, ABRASF, IBJR, Estado do Paraná and LOTTOPAR, CNS, AIGAMING, DPU, Instituto Alana, ICCON-BRASIL and ABERT, while collectively rejecting the other applicants, including Instituto Moderação. The stated reason was to avoid “repetitiveness in series of bodies carrying identical interests and knowledge on the topic,” in order to preserve procedural efficiency and speed.
4. Instituto Moderação says its contribution would not overlap with the amici already admitted. It argues that, unlike the Instituto Brasileiro de Jogo Responsável (IBJR), which presented itself as a representative of companies in the sector and focused its submission on operational data and self-regulation initiatives, its own work is centered on the technical-operational side of gambling addiction prevention: early identification of risk patterns, behavioral monitoring, and evidence-based intervention. It pointed to its own System IMod, a tool designed to detect risky behavior.
5. The entity says that expertise goes straight to the constitutional question in the ADI: whether the current statutory safeguards are sufficient to protect bettors’ fundamental rights. Law No. 14.790/2023 already includes responsible gaming duties and systems for monitoring bettor activity, and the STF is being asked to decide whether that design provides enough protection. Instituto Moderação says it can give the Court technical input on whether those mechanisms work in practice.

For high-risk operators and their payment partners, the interesting part is that the challenge is aimed at the legal architecture underpinning fixed-odds betting itself. If the Court treats responsible gaming controls as central to constitutional validity, the pressure will fall not only on operators and affiliates, but on the PSPs and acquirers that have to support the flow while the rulebook is still being litigated.