Nunes Marques admits ABRASF and Itaquaquecetuba as amici curiae in Brazil’s ADPF 1212 over municipal lotteries

Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has widened the bench, at least procedurally, in the case challenging municipal lotteries and betting systems. The practical point for high-risk payment providers: the ADPF 1212 is now moving toward a plenary ruling that could decide whether municipalities can run their own betting operations or whether that space stays with the Union and the states.

1. On Monday, August 24, Justice Nunes Marques admitted the Associação Brasileira das Secretarias de Finanças (ABRASF) and the Municipality of Itaquaquecetuba (SP) as amici curiae in ADPF 1212, the case examining the constitutionality of municipal laws that created local lotteries, raffle systems, and betting products. He said the requirements of relevance, representativeness, and connection to the subject of the action were met, citing arts. 6, §2, of Law 9.882/1999 and 7, §2, of Law 9.868/1999.
2. With the new admissions, ADPF 1212 now has at least 14 entities and public bodies authorized to participate, including sector associations, states, and municipalities. In procedural terms, that is a very broad spread of voices for a case tied to betting in the STF.
3. The case was filed in March 2025 by the Solidariedade party against normative acts from at least 13 municipalities, including São Paulo, Guarulhos, Campinas, São Vicente and Poá (SP), Belo Horizonte (MG), Anápolis and Caldas Novas (GO), Foz do Iguaçu (PR), Pelotas and Porto Alegre (RS), Bodó (RN), and Miguel Pereira (RJ). The party argues that legislation on lotteries and raffles falls under the Union’s exclusive power under art. 22, XX, of the Constitution, and that the residual power reserved to states under art. 25, §1, does not extend to municipalities.
4. On December 3, 2025, Nunes Marques issued an injunction suspending, nationwide, the effectiveness of the municipal laws that created lotteries and betting and ordered the immediate shutdown of ongoing operations, including those already delegated to private companies. The order set daily fines of R$ 500 mil for municipalities and R$ 50 mil for mayors and operators’ executives.
5. The injunction went to review in the Virtual Plenary, but a request for a highlight by Justice Flávio Dino moved the case to an in-person session. After almost nine months and several rounds of amici curiae admissions, Nunes Marques has now released ADPF 1212 for judgment in the physical Plenary of the STF.

The ruling is expected to settle a very specific but commercially relevant question: can lotteries and betting be decentralized to municipalities, or do they remain under the exclusive regulation of the Union and the states? For the fixed-odds betting market regulated by Law 14.790/2023, that is not just a constitutional footnote. It is the difference between a fragmented licensing map and a much tighter regulatory perimeter.