Brazil’s AGU asks STF for broader hearing in ADI 8027 as gambling ban challenge lands before Luiz Fux

Brazil’s Attorney General’s Office has asked the Supreme Federal Court (STF) to widen the list of participants for the public hearing in ADI 8027, the action filed by ANJL against MP 1.394/2026. For high-risk payments and gaming operators, the point is not the courtroom theater; it is who gets heard before a regulator-style decision hardens into policy.

1. The AGU filed its petition on Wednesday (28) at 16:40 with Justice Luiz Fux, the rapporteur in ADI 8027. The request is to expand the roster of invited entities for the public hearing scheduled for next Wednesday (4). The document is signed by Isadora Maria Belem Rocha Cartaxo de Arruda, secretary-general for litigation, and Daniel Pincowscy Cardoso Martins de Andrade Alvim, a Union lawyer.
2. The AGU says the hearing should “amplify contradiction” and ensure “the truth of the facts,” which it describes as one of the “central ethical assumptions of the rule of law.” It argues that Fux’s list of 26 speakers, including 11 sports entities and 6 representatives of operators, “may make balanced expression of the various currents of opinion more difficult.”
3. Specifically, the AGU wants to add the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB), the Evangelical Church of Lutheran Confession in Brazil (IECLB), Febraban, the Institute for Retail Development (IDV), IDEC and Dieese. It also asks, “in particular,” for the inclusion of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security.
4. The source text says the government did not apply that standard at the Planalto. On 1 September, Lula gathered a handpicked group at the Palácio do Planalto to discuss the betting market. Guests included rapper Emicida and producer Paula Lavigne, along with officials from Casa Civil, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Sport. Febraban, CNI and CNC were also invited, with the confirmed presence of CNI president Ricardo Alban and Febraban president Isaac Sidney. The meeting did not include representatives of betting companies.
5. Also absent were bettors, football clubs, sports federations, tourism entities and managers of public security funds. The text identifies these as the legal beneficiaries of the revenue defined by Law 14.790/2023. Less than a month later, on 25 September, the government issued the MP that banned bets. The result, as the source puts it, is that nobody in that room asked for “balanced expression.”

The high-risk angle is straightforward: when a betting restriction is debated without operators, beneficiaries of the tax flow, or technical critics of the numbers behind it, the eventual rulebook tends to reflect whoever got to the microphone first. For PSPs and acquirers touching gaming, that is the kind of process detail that matters long before the final vote.