Brazil’s MP das Bets puts R$ 2.55 billion in licenses and R$ 6.8 billion in tax revenue at risk

Brazil’s Medida Provisória 1.394/2026 has done something regulators usually try to avoid: it changed the economics after the money was already collected. For high-risk PSPs, the part to watch is not just the betting shutdown itself, but the signal it sends about licensing stability, settlement planning, and whether a regulated market can be turned off on 30 days’ notice.

1. The MP ordered the termination, within 30 days, of betting authorizations granted by the federal government to 85 companies, with no provision for refunding the amounts paid and no compensation. It also gave operators 10 days to remove websites, apps, advertising, and sponsorship signals.
2. Under the regulated framework, each company had paid R$ 30 million for a five-year authorization. That brought the state R$ 2.55 billion across 85 licenses. Paulo Ganime, executive director of the Associação do Livre Mercado, said in Folha de S.Paulo that ending those authorizations before the term expires without compensation creates a legal certainty problem, because the state collected the fee on one basis and then changed the rules midstream.
3. The regulated market began operating under federal rules in January 2025. The term and price of the authorizations shaped investment, hiring, and supplier commitments during that period, which is exactly the sort of thing payment teams and commercial teams build around when they decide whether to enter a market.
4. The financial hit is already showing up in listed operators’ disclosures. Flutter, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, told the SEC that a suspension in Brazil through the end of 2026 would reduce revenue by about US$ 70 million (R$ 351.6 million) and adjusted EBITDA by US$ 20 million (R$ 100.2 million). Entain, listed in London and owner of Sportingbet, kept its guidance range unchanged but said it now expects results near the bottom end.
5. For Brazil, the government projects a shortfall of R$ 6.8 billion by 2027 from the sector-specific tax and the inspection fee alone. One day after the MP was issued, on Thursday (26/9), ANJL (Associação Nacional de Jogos e Loterias) said it found 1,689 new illegal addresses, which suggests the black market was ready to absorb demand as soon as the regulated channel was disrupted.

That last point is the one PSPs and acquiring teams will recognize immediately: if legal supply is cut faster than illegal supply is constrained, volume does not disappear. It moves. Ganime’s argument was that a consistent response would need to target abusive advertising, restrict bank movements to illegal operators, and expand prevention and treatment for gambling addiction, with evidence showing those steps actually work. In other words, the policy question is not whether there is demand; it is who gets to process it, and under what rules.