Brazil’s Senate economic committee to hold hearing on the social and economic impact of the betting ban

The Senate’s Economic Affairs Committee (CAE) will hold a public hearing on the social and economic effects of Brazil’s ban on fixed-odds betting. The hearing comes as lawmakers still have not started practical review of Provisional Measure 1.394/2026, which means the debate is now moving into the Senate before the main committee process has even begun.

1. The request came from Senator Veneziano Vital do Rêgo (MDB-PB), who asked for an assessment of the economic, fiscal, and social effects of MP 1.394/2026, issued by the Lula government on 25 September. According to Agência Senado, no date has been set yet.
2. The hearing was approved through Request 108/2026 on 4 November. The stated scope is broad: debt, mental health, and spillover effects on other parts of the economy. In other words, the Senate is creating a forum to hear arguments that were not necessarily part of the government’s original drafting process.
3. The committee that is supposed to review the MP has had its members appointed, but it has still not been installed and has not elected a chair or rapporteur. That matters because the clock is already ticking: according to BNLData’s count, the initial deadline expires on 23 November and is automatically extended from 24 November, pauses during the recess from 23/12 to 1/2, and the MP loses validity on 4 March 2027 if it is not voted on.
4. Lawmakers have already filed 99 amendments to the text. Many of them would soften the ban, create transition rules, or restore funding for sport. For PSPs and operators, that is the real signal: this is not a closed policy file, but a live legislative fight with multiple exit ramps still on the table.
5. The Supreme Federal Court is also involved. Justice Luiz Fux suspended lawsuits against the MP in lower courts, and the case will be judged together with the ADIs challenging Law 14.790/2023, with no date set yet. So the issue is now sitting in both the legislative and judicial tracks at the same time.

The Senate hearing also gives lawmakers a place to hear from operators with licenses, recipients of legal gambling revenue such as sport, tourism, and public security, football clubs, sector workers, and specialists on the illegal market. Another issue likely to surface is the absence of impact studies to justify the measure; BNLData says its LAI requests showed that those studies either did not exist or were not presented.