Federal court lets Stake operate until October 25, but refuses to suspend Brazil’s betting decree

A federal judge in São Paulo granted Stake Brazil Ltda. partial injunctive relief, keeping the company’s fixed-odds betting authorization effective until 25 October 2026 and pausing the redirection of stake.bet.br. For PSPs, acquirers, and banks, the practical point is simple: the authorization was not wiped out on day one, but the court also did not freeze the broader regulatory fight around Brazil’s betting rules.

1. Judge Cristiane Farias Rodrigues dos Santos, of the 9th Federal Civil Court of São Paulo, ruled in mandamus proceeding 5030862-66.2026.4.03.6100, filed by Stake Brazil Ltda. against the Ministry of Finance’s Secretariat of Prizes and Bets (SPA/MF), Anatel, and the Central Bank.
2. The court rejected Stake’s main request to suspend the full effects of Provisional Measure No. 1.394/2026 and let the company operate until 31 December 2029, which had been the end date of the authorization granted under SPA/MF Ordinance No. 263, issued in February 2025. Instead, the judge accepted only the subsidiary request, limited to the date when the provisional measure itself says existing authorizations end.
3. Until 25 October, or until further court order, the authorities are barred from treating Stake’s authorization as extinguished and from imposing sanctions solely because the company continues operating within the limits of the decision. The same order also suspends any blocking, redirection, or unavailability measures against stake.bet.br and the operator’s applications when those measures are based exclusively on the early extinction of the authorization.
4. The redirection had been requested by the Ministry of Justice and Public Security through Official Letter No. 1264/2026 from the National Secretariat for Digital Rights, with implementation scheduled from 0:01 on 6 October. The ruling also serves as notice to SPA/MF, Anatel, the Central Bank, and the Ministry of Justice.
5. The judge’s core reasoning was internal consistency in the provisional measure: it set one deadline for removing platforms in ten days and another for extinguishing authorizations in thirty days. In the court’s view, if the authorization had ceased to exist immediately upon publication of the measure, there would have been no reason for the law to set a later specific date for extinction. The ruling describes the injunction as a conservative measure, not a new right and not a declaration that the provisional measure is invalid.

The court also rejected the idea that Stake holds a mere “contractual concession” fantasy and instead recognized that the administrative authorization followed a formal procedure, including payment of the licence fee and compliance with regulatory requirements. For the market, that distinction matters: in Brazil, the exact legal status of an operator’s authorization can decide whether a domain gets routed, blocked, or left alone while the paperwork and politics catch up.