Brazil’s SPA sets rules for using and releasing the R$ 5 million betting reserve after MP 1.394

The Secretaria de Prêmios e Apostas (SPA/MF) has published Instrução Normativa SPA/MF nº 32, putting a process around the R$ 5 million reserve that licensed fixed-odds betting operators must hold. For PSPs and payment teams, the key point is simple: the reserve can now be used as a backstop for unpaid bettors, but only under a controlled procedure, with audit checks and no freehand movement of the money.

1. The rule was published in the extra edition of the Diário Oficial da União on 10 November and signed by Daniele Correa Cardoso. It entered into force on the publication date, 46 days after the issuance of Medida Provisória nº 1.394/2026, which banned bets in the country.
2. The reserve, required under art. 9º of Portaria Normativa SPA/MF nº 615/2024, must be at least R$ 5 million and is held in federal public securities, separate from operating accounts. Under the new instruction, it has two possible uses after the MP: to pay bettors if the money in transacional accounts is not enough to return all amounts due, or to be released back to the company once there are no known obligations to bettors.
3. The reserve is a last-resort mechanism. An operator may request it only after the measures in art. 8º of the MP have been completed and if amounts still remain unpaid to bettors. The request must follow the standard form in Anexo I, state that all other sources of funds have been exhausted, and include the individual list of bettors to be paid, with the amount requested matching the total owed to them.
4. SPA/MF will compare the requested amount with the data banks and payment institutions have sent through the Sistema de Gestão de Apostas (Sigap) on amounts not returned because of insufficient balance. If the figures do not match, the company will have to explain the difference. Once approved, the custodian institution sells the securities and transfers the proceeds to the account indicated by Caixa Econômica Federal, which performs the restitution to bettors under art. 9º, § 3º, of the MP.
5. The rule is also explicit about what the reserve cannot cover: operating, administrative, labor, tax or corporate expenses, plus any other costs tied to winding down the business. One sensitive detail sits in Anexo II, where administrators must acknowledge that the lack of funds in transacional accounts to pay all bettors is a situation “potentially incompatible” with art. 4º, §§ 3º and 7º, of Portaria 615, which requires account balances to always match the total balances of bettors and open bets.

For high-risk payment providers, the practical message is that Brazil is treating betting balances as a tightly controlled pass-through structure: funds are ring-fenced, restitution flows are documented through Sigap, and the reserve exists only as a payment backstop for bettors, not as a general pool for shutdown costs. The norm does not set a deadline for the government’s review, so the process remains regulated, but not exactly fast.