Lula’s MP against online bets echoes his 2004 bingo ban, which the Senate killed after three months

Lula has signed MP 1.394/2026 to ban online betting in Brazil just nine days before the first round of elections, and the move has an obvious political clock attached to it. For payment providers, the useful part is not the symbolism but the pattern: when Brazil’s government wants to signal control over gambling, it reaches for emergency legislation first and sorts out the practical consequences later.

1. MP 1.394/2026, signed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), bans online betting (bets) in Brazil. The timing matters: it came nine days before the first round of elections, when polls reportedly show a technical tie between Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro (PL).
2. According to the text, government aides say the ban is meant to win votes from evangelical voters and women who manage family finances. In other words, this is not just a gambling-policy move; it is also an election-season message to two groups that matter politically.
3. This is not Lula’s first attempt to use a provisional measure against gambling. In 2004, after Época published allegations against Waldomiro Diniz, the deputy chief of parliamentary affairs in the Civil House, Lula signed MP 168/2004 to ban bingos and slot machines in Brazil. Diniz had appeared in a recording negotiating money for campaigns and bribes with the gambling figure Carlinhos Cachoeira.
4. That 2004 measure was also aimed at insulating the government from political damage. The article says the strategy was to separate the administration from gambling, protect José Dirceu politically, and contain calls for a CPI (parliamentary inquiry commission) that were already building. Aldo Rebelo, then minister of political coordination, said the government needed to respond quickly and make clear it opposed bingo and would not tolerate any illegality.
5. The Senate buried the 2004 bingo MP three months later. The Chamber approved it on Tuesday, March 30, 2004, but the Senate shelved it on Wednesday, May 5, by 32 votes to 31, with three abstentions. José Sarney (PMDB-AL), then president of the Senate, watched bingo employees celebrating from the galleries.

For high-risk PSPs, the detail that matters is simple: Brazil has already shown that a sweeping gambling ban can be announced fast, become a political weapon, and still fail in Congress. The article also notes that the 2004 ban barely worked in practice while it was in force: a day after Lula signed it, bingo halls in São Paulo and Belo Horizonte were still open as usual.