Brazil’s AGU asks Supreme Court to strike down the fixed-odds betting laws

The Brazilian Attorney General’s Office (AGU) has asked the Supreme Federal Court (STF) to declare the core of Laws 13.756/2018 and 14.790/2023 unconstitutional. For PSPs, acquirers, and banks active in Brazil’s betting stack, the point is simple: the country’s legal framework for fixed-odds betting is now being challenged not just on regulation, but on whether it protects public health, household finances, and the wider economy at all.

1. The filing was submitted on Friday, 2/10, and signed electronically at 16:22 by Attorney General Jorge Messias in response to an order from Justice Luiz Fux, the rapporteur in Direct Action of Unconstitutionality (ADI) 7749, which was filed by the Prosecutor General’s Office.
2. The AGU’s position has changed. In ADI 7721, it had said the law was “still constitutional, subject to a process of progressive unconstitutionality.” Now, after monitoring since 2024, the office says the legislative package shows “insufficient protection” and fails to create effective mechanisms to contain damage to public health, the minimum existential standard, family unity, and economic order.
3. To support that argument, the AGU cited health data showing that SUS treatment under codes F63.0 (pathological gambling) and Z72.6 (gambling mania) rose 140% between January 2018 and December 2025. The Ministry of Health’s telehealth service recorded 100,000 accesses related to the issue, and an Instituto de Estudos para Políticas de Saúde study published in December 2025 put the annual social cost of betting-related health impacts at R$ 30.6 billion.
4. On the financial side, the office cited the 2026 Boletim Fiscal dos Estados Brasileiros, which estimated a net outflow of R$ 62.5 billion from household budgets in 2025. Between January 2023 and March 2026, about 268,000 families entered severe delinquency, with an estimated R$ 143 billion loss for retail commerce. Household debt in Brazil reached 49.9% in February 2026, the highest level in the historical series that began in 2005.
5. The AGU also pointed to the illegal market. It said criminal groups used clandestine platforms to move about R$ 7 billion since 2021, while the illegal share of the betting market is estimated at between 41% and 51% of the total. In April 2024, Operação Primma Migratio by the Federal Police found more than R$ 300 million in movements tied to Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) in a money laundering scheme via betting.

For operators and their payment partners, the practical question is not abstract constitutional theory. If the STF takes the AGU’s new position seriously, the legal footing for fixed-odds betting in Brazil becomes a moving target, and that tends to show up first in licensing, merchant onboarding, compliance expectations, and bank appetite.