Stake wins court order to resume Brazil operations until 25 October

A Federal Court in São Paulo has granted Stake a partial injunction allowing the betting platform to keep operating in Brazil until 25 October. For licensed fixed-odds betting operators, the significance is straightforward: this is the first court win in the sector against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s provisional ban.

1. The ruling was signed by Federal Judge Cristiane Farias Rodrigues dos Santos of the 9th Federal Civil Court of São Paulo. Stake’s lawsuit, filed by the law firm Bichara e Motta, asked the court to suspend Provisional Measure 1.394 and to allow the company to operate until 31 December 2029, when its operator licence expires.
2. The judge only partially granted that request. Stake can operate until 25 October, and the court ordered the platform’s website to be unblocked so the company can continue its operations. The authorities must also refrain from treating Stake’s authorisation as terminated, which means the platform block is suspended for now.
3. The date matters because 25 October is the expiry date set in the provisional measure for operators’ licences. In the judge’s view, if authorisation were already legally nonexistent from the moment the provisional measure was published, there would be no reason for the rule to set a later termination date.
4. The ruling also prevents access to the gov.br website the government created to guide bettors about the end of the betting process. That detail sounds procedural, but for PSPs and operators it is exactly the kind of administrative machinery that usually follows a market shutdown.
5. Stake’s return comes after Lula banned online gambling in late September through a provisional measure. Before this court victory, two of Brazil’s main gambling trade bodies asked the Supreme Federal Court to overturn the ban, but no ruling date has been set yet.

The court allowed the operation to resume only under 12 conditions, including a ban on betting by people barred by law, by government programmes or by regulatory mechanisms; a ban on gambling with money from social programmes; preservation of bettor identification mechanisms; restrictions on advertising to children and teenagers; no new promotional campaigns to grow the user base; the ability for bettors to withdraw their balance; sufficient funds to cover outstanding balances; preservation of registration, financial and transactional records; continued transmission of reports required by regulators; and a ban on operating through unauthorised domains.