Brazil’s betting ban hits a decisive week as amendment deadline closes, Fux stays silent, and the illegal market keeps growing

Brazil’s Medida Provisória nº 1.394/2026, which banned fixed-odds betting in the country, is now in a critical stretch: lawmakers can file amendments until 23:59 on Tuesday (13/10), banks are wrapping up refunding player balances, and the Supreme Federal Court (STF) has not ruled on requests to suspend the measure. For PSPs and operators, the main point is simple: the regulatory timeline is moving, but the banned market is already being replaced by offshore sites.

1. The Congress amendment window closes at 23:59 on Tuesday (13/10). The original deadline would have expired on 1 October, six days after the measure was published in the Diário Oficial da União, but the Congress leadership extended it to the first business day after the elections. By Friday (9/10), the MP had already received at least 58 amendments, and four had been withdrawn by their authors.
2. The political fight is concentrated on one issue: saving sports betting. At least seven lawmakers want only online casino games banned, not sports betting. Deputy Bebeto (PP-RJ) went further and proposed allowing all formats that were operating before the MP, while keeping advertising restrictions, including a ban on buying stadium naming rights.
3. The joint committee to review the MP has already been appointed, but Congress has not yet set the timetable, the rapporteur, or the chair of the committee. That committee will vote on the text and amendments before it moves to the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate plenaries. The review deadline runs until 23 November, and the MP starts blocking the agenda from 9 November.
4. On the administrative side, the Ministry of Finance’s Secretariat of Prizes and Betting (SPA) published Portaria SPA/MF nº 3.005, which sets 15 December as the final date for fixed-odds betting operators to cease activity and defines deadlines for a gradual shutdown. That date sits alongside another deadline in the MP itself: the expiration of federal authorizations on 25 October.
5. The illegal market is not waiting for the legal timeline to sort itself out. According to the government’s own data released last week, the executive branch has referred 13,241 illegal websites for blocking. That is more than 1,100 sites per day, which is exactly the sort of number regulated operators point to when they argue that prohibition tends to hand traffic to unlicensed brands instead of deleting demand.