Brazil betting sector makes case for regulated market at Supreme Court hearing

Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF) heard both sides of the fight over Provisional Measure 1.394, which banned betting in the country. For operators, PSPs, and other payments players, the key issue is not just the ban itself, but whether Brazil keeps a regulated framework or pushes activity back into channels that are harder to screen, monitor, and collect against.

1. Minister Luiz Fux opened the public hearing, where 34 entities debated Provisional Measure 1.394 on Tuesday. The measure is being challenged in Direct Action of Unconstitutionality 8027, filed by the National Association of Games and Lotteries (ANJL), which wants the provisional measure’s effects suspended.
2. The Brazilian government defended the ban through representatives from the Ministries of Justice, Health and Finance, together with the Attorney General’s Office (AGU). Their argument was straightforward: betting creates health, financial, and social harms, and the state needs to stop it rather than keep refining the rules.
3. Justice Minister Wellington César Lima e Silva called betting platforms an “architecture of unspeakable dependency” and described the measure as “relevant and urgent.” AGU head Jorge Messias said the earlier regulatory framework did not provide enough protection and argued it had become “materially unconstitutional due to insufficient protection of constitutionally protected assets.”
4. The industry’s answer was legal certainty, tighter safeguards, and the standard warning that prohibition does not end demand — it moves it elsewhere. The Brazilian Institute for Responsible Gaming (IBJR) asked Fux for an injunction to suspend the measure until Congress rules or the Supreme Court decides the case on the merits. ANJL also argued for stricter rules rather than a total prohibition.
5. IBJR representative Celso Mori said Brazil had already chosen regulated gambling through Congress, after years of legislative work, and that reversing course now would push users toward “clandestine and irregular gambling.” The Economic Regulation Laboratory at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) went one step further and proposed eight conditions for reopening the legal market if the measure is overturned, including banning credit-funded Pix transactions for bets, setting a global betting limit for each taxpayer identification number across all operators, checking whether users receive social benefits, and improving self-exclusion tools.