ANJL asks Brazil’s Supreme Court to suspend MP 1,394, which bans fixed-odds betting

The National Association of Games and Lotteries (ANJL) has filed ADI 8027 with Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF), seeking to suspend Provisional Measure 1,394, which bars sports betting and online gaming in Brazil. For high-risk operators and PSPs, the immediate issue is simple: this is now a legal fight over whether a regulated market that launched under federal authorizations from 1 January 2025 can be shut down by executive act.

1. ANJL argues that MP 1,394 is unconstitutional and violates legal certainty, legitimate expectations, free initiative, and free competition. In the filing, the association also asks the STF to confirm the constitutionality of the two laws that created Brazil’s regulated fixed-odds betting market.
2. According to ANJL, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed the measure on Friday, 25 October, and it effectively dismantles a market that has attracted million-dollar investments and generated approximately 60,000 direct and indirect jobs in less than two years.
3. The association says the government’s move ignores consumer protection and pushes millions of bettors toward the illegal market, where sites cannot be blocked effectively by the regulator, do not pay taxes, and offer no guarantee that winnings will be paid.
4. ANJL also says the government failed to address the operational fallout: employment contracts, sponsorships, supply agreements, or even orderly communication to consumers. In its words, the regulated market has operated since January 2025 under five-year authorizations, but now “must cease in ten days and disappear in thirty.”
5. The filing asks for an injunction suspending the measure ideally before 5 October, when platforms are due to be shut down, or at least by 25 October, when federal authorizations are scheduled to expire. ANJL president Plínio Lemos Jorge says the case is meant to stop an unconstitutional act that hits not only betting companies, but millions of bettors as well.