Flávio Dino requests review, and Brazil’s STF pauses gambling case until 2027

Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has suspended a case that could determine whether the 1941 ban on gambling still stands under the 1988 Constitution. For high-risk payment providers, the catch is obvious: the court also started circling the country’s fixed-odds betting regime, the Lei das Bets, which means the line between “games of chance” and regulated betting is now part of the dispute.

1. On Thursday, August 6, Justice Flávio Dino asked for a review of the case and halted the trial. Chief Justice Edson Fachin accepted the request. Dino also said he will rewrite his vote before the case resumes in 2027.
2. The case had already seen Justice Luiz Fux vote to uphold the criminal contravention that bans the exploitation of gambling. That law is Article 50 of Brazil’s Contraventions Law, which provides for simple imprisonment of three months to one year and a fine for operating games of chance in a public place or a place accessible to the public.
3. Dino said he wanted to clarify what a ruling on gambling would mean for fixed-odds betting, known as bets. His point was blunt: if gambling is a contravention, is betting also one? Fux replied that those issues were not the subject of that action and should be dealt with in two separate Direct Actions of Unconstitutionality, which he also reports.
4. The appeal before the STF was filed by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Rio Grande do Sul against a decision from the state’s Criminal Special Courts Appeal Panel. That panel had acquitted a person who operated slot machines in a bar in São Leopoldo, reasoning that the 1988 Constitution had removed gambling from the scope of criminal contravention because of individual liberty protections.
5. Before Dino’s review request, the justices were already split on process. Dias Toffoli argued for combining all the ADIs on the topic into one joint judgment. André Mendonça wanted the current ADI finished immediately and the others left for later. Gilmar Mendes said the best route would be to hear all actions involving municipal lotteries, betting, and gambling together.

The practical issue for PSPs is timing. If the STF eventually consolidates the cases, regulatory measures already moving through Brazil’s bets sector could be implemented in a coordinated way before the court reaches a final view. For now, the judgment is on hold, and the industry gets a longer runway before the legal framing of gambling and fixed-odds betting is settled.