Alagoas moves to set up a state lottery with net proceeds earmarked for its poverty fund

Governor Paulo Dantas has sent a bill to the Alagoas Legislative Assembly (ALE-AL) to create a state public lottery service, with net revenue directed to the State Fund for the Fight Against Poverty (Fecoep). For PSPs and operators, the important bit is not the lottery headline itself but the payment stack the draft law tries to lock in: PIX integration, payment-processing authorization, real-time reporting, AML and fraud controls.

1. The bill was received by the legislature on 16 June and would allow the executive branch to run the lottery directly or delegate it to the private sector through concession or license. The draft says the activity would be regulated within Alagoas under a local framework.
2. According to the official justification, funding would come from bets, financial contributions from authorized companies, concession revenue, financial returns, agreements, donations, and unclaimed prizes after 90 days from the publication of results. The draft says these proceeds would finance social policies without adding to the state budget.
3. The proposal relies on a decision by Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court, which recognized that states can operate their own lottery services. Alagoas is using that precedent to define its own licensing and operating rules instead of waiting for a federal one-size-fits-all model.
4. Arsal, the Alagoas State Public Services Regulatory Agency, would be responsible for regulation, supervision, and control of all lottery operations. Only legal entities could provide the service, either directly or via delegation to private operators.
5. The draft sets out a fairly detailed compliance list for interested companies: fiscal and banking requirements, data protection compliance including the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), digital security systems, authorization to operate in payment processing, and AML/CFT (anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing) mechanisms. It also requires geolocation of bets, real-time monitoring, transaction traceability, biometric authentication, anti-fraud integration, and automatic blocking of users under 18.

For high-risk payments teams, the operational takeaway is clear: if Alagoas gets this through, the winning bidders will need a payments setup that can handle PIX for both stakes and prizes, plus live reporting on collection, prize payouts, and financial movements under Arsal’s supervision. That is a lottery bill, but it reads a lot like a payment control manual.