At SBC Lisboa, the industry bets on the STF to strike down Brazil’s MP 1.394/2026

In Lisbon this Tuesday (29), speakers at an extra SBC Meetup on Brazil’s regulated betting market treated MP 1.394/2026 as a political move, not a technical one, and said the next decisive battleground is the Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF). For PSPs and payment teams, the important bit is simple: the talk is no longer just about regulation, but about which legal, political, and enforcement channels will survive long enough to shape where money can actually move.

1. The debate took place at the SBC Summit Lisboa, in the Regulatory Gaming Meetup Lounge, stand F4-17, just days after the publication of Medida Provisória nº 1.394/2026, which bans fixed-odds betting in Brazil. The event was framed as a discussion of the most delicate moment for the regulated betting market since Lei 14.790/2023 came into force.
2. Participants included Leonardo Baptista, CEO and cofounder of PayForFun, who moderated; Ana Bárbara Teixeira, director of ABRAJOGO; Bárbara Teles, director of AMIG; Bernardo Freire, lawyer at BetLaw and consultant to ANJL; Gilberto Porto, lawyer; Michael Lopes Stewart, partner at Arco Advice; and Magnho José, president of the Instituto Brasileiro Jogo Legal (IJL) and editor of BNLData.
3. Baptista said the impact was immediate. PayForFun is an institution of payment authorized by the Banco Central, and since Friday he had been contacted by three foreign companies interested in buying a regulated payment institution with its own Pix infrastructure in order to operate exclusively in the illegal market. He also said at least five operators were already talking about cutting almost half of their staff.
4. Magnho José pointed to the 2004 bingo ban as the closest precedent. Then, Lula used a provisional measure to prohibit bingos; the Chamber approved it, the Senate overturned it, and the market returned. His point this time was that the business is digital and “apatriotic” — there is no physical door to seal, unlike in 2004. He also said that prohibiting does not mean protecting, and argued that the regulated market may return before the MP is even voted on by Congress, though it will not come back in the same shape because the measure has already unsettled the market.
5. Bernardo Freire said two actions have already been filed at the Supremo Tribunal Federal and described the MP as “political, not technical.” According to him, the government itself admitted it had carried out no impact study and no prior analysis at the Ministry of Finance. He also disputed the figures cited when the measure was announced, including the R$ 100 billion health cost and the R$ 65 billion said to have left the economy, and instead cited official data from the Secretaria de Prêmios e Apostas. He said around 6,000 illegal sites were identified in four days, some of them cloning authorized brands.

Freire said a preliminary injunction could come the week after the first round. If not, the file would move on to the Co...