Brazil’s Supreme Court puts three betting constitutional challenges on a fast track

Supreme Court Justice Luiz Fux has set ADIs 7721, 7723 and 7749 to be heard together and used an abbreviated procedure that sends the Prosecutor General’s challenge straight to the merits, without a preliminary injunction phase. For anyone in payments serving Brazil’s fixed-odds betting market, that means the legal framework for licensing, payment flows, and platform access is now moving through the STF with less room for slow-motion uncertainty.

1. On Thursday (27), Fux signed two orders that were published on Friday (28). In those orders, he ruled on dozens of requests to join the cases as amicus curiae and confirmed that the three cases will be judged together once the instruction phase in the Prosecutor General’s action is complete.
2. ADIs 7721 and 7723 were filed respectively by the Confederação Nacional do Comércio de Bens, Serviços e Turismo (CNC) and the Solidariedade party. Both challenge Law No. 14.790/2023 on the grounds that Brazil’s fixed-odds betting regulation has increased household debt and harmed the economic order.
3. ADI 7749, filed by the Procuradoria-Geral da República (PGR), goes further and seeks to have the entire fixed-odds betting framework declared unconstitutional: Law 14.790/2023, the remaining provisions of Law 13.756/2018, and the ordinances issued by the Secretaria de Prêmios e Apostas of the Ministry of Finance (SPA/MF).
4. The PGR’s arguments are broad and, for payment and acquiring teams, quite operationally relevant. It says lottery-style gambling is a public service that should have been awarded by concession or permit through a bidding process, not by simple authorization; that the executive branch was given unconstitutional power to define restrictions; that the SPA/MF ordinances are therefore unconstitutional by extension; and that the regime does not sufficiently protect health, human dignity, children and adolescents, people with disabilities, and elderly users given how easily betting is available through apps.
5. The Prosecutor General also points to alleged money-flow and compliance risks: weak awareness mechanisms around problem gambling, diversion of social-program funds, and security vulnerabilities tied to money laundering and match-fixing. In support, the PGR cites a Central Bank survey saying around 5 million Bolsa Família beneficiaries transferred about R$ 3 billion to bets via Pix in August 2024, and an Enccla survey on the sector’s exposure to laundering and sports-result manipulation. It also argues that the 2018 law’s betting provisions were inserted by parliamentary amendment unrelated to the provisional measure that introduced the law.

One more detail matters for operators: the PGR asks that, if the framework is struck down, fixed-odds betting should return to its status as a criminal misdemeanor until new legislation is passed. That is the most aggressive outcome among the cases now under Fux’s rapporteurship.