Betano says Brazil’s MP on online betting threatens legal certainty and R$ 10 billion in tax revenue

Betano has said it fully complies with Medida Provisória 1.394/2026, published on September 25, but argued that the measure breaks with the two-year process of building a regulated online betting market in Brazil. For high-risk PSPs, the point is simple: when regulation shifts abruptly, traffic does not disappear — it tends to move to unlicensed operators.

1. In a public note released on Friday, October 2, Betano said the MP jeopardizes measures built over the last two years, including self-exclusion, betting limits, and protections for Bolsa Família beneficiaries. The company’s position is that these safeguards were only possible because the sector was regulated, and that any rollback would put them at risk.
2. Betano’s core argument is the familiar one regulators hear and often underestimate: banning online betting does not remove demand, it redirects it. In the company’s view, users will move to clandestine operators outside Brazilian regulation, which do not offer the same consumer protections and do not contribute to the sector’s tax take.
3. The operator said the sector’s tax revenue is estimated at almost R$ 10 billion. It also noted that the impact is not limited to betting companies themselves, because the industry supports a wider ecosystem of small and medium-sized businesses in technology, telecoms, media, services, education, and sport-related businesses.
4. Betano added that the tax revenue generated by the regulated market helps fund health, tourism, and public security. In other words, this is not just a licensing issue for operators and PSPs; it is also a fiscal issue for the state budget, which is why abrupt rule changes tend to ripple well beyond the betting lobby.
5. On the immediate operational side, Betano said it will prioritize maintaining staff and honoring existing social investment commitments. It also said other initiatives that depend on the continuation of regulated activity will be suspended until there is clarity on the legal framework.

The open question is the legislative fate of Medida Provisória 1.394/2026. Until Congress acts, Betano says companies are operating in a regulatory limbo that complicates long-term investment and undermines the legal certainty the sector spent the past few years trying to build.