Brazil’s justice minister gave the Supreme Court a speech on illegal betting without numbers

At a public hearing on MP 1.394/2026, Brazil’s Ministry of Justice and Public Security was supposed to explain how it is fighting the illegal betting market. Instead, minister Wellington César Lima e Silva spent most of his time on political framing, while leaving out the basic figures the industry was waiting for: blocked sites, frozen accounts, and recovered funds.

1. Wellington César Lima e Silva told the Supreme Federal Court (STF) that he was speaking “spontaneously” and then used much of the session to praise President Lula’s “sensitivity” in handling the issue. He also defended a “right anthropocentrically grounded” and said the numbers would come “later,” so as “not to tire the audience.”
2. For the Ministry of Justice and Public Security (MJSP), the hearing should have been the concrete part of the government’s case. The ministry is responsible for coordinating the fight against illegal betting platforms, the same market that, according to the sector and independent reports, has grown since the MP took authorized companies offline.
3. The minister said he had identified an “undesirable proximity” between betting activity and organized crime, including money laundering, but gave no case, operation, or amount. He also suggested that authorized operators were keeping illegal activity running in parallel, “in just one segment,” without naming companies or saying whether any sanctions had been imposed.
4. What was missing from the speech was exactly what industry operators and PSPs would want to see: how many illegal sites had been blocked since 25 September, how many accounts had been frozen, and how much money had been recovered. The text also notes that the escalation of clandestine platforms has been recorded in LegitBet reports shared by ANJL, and that BNLData requested these figures from the MJSP under Brazil’s Freedom of Information Law on 11 October and is still waiting for a reply.
5. The minister also argued for the relevance and urgency requirements of the MP, both of which are being challenged in ADI 8027, and used a football metaphor to say the government wins “by a landslide” on principles. He invoked “Sua Excelência Realidade,” which he said had prevailed over the legitimate expectations of the business environment.

There is one uncomfortable detail in the background: the market the government now calls “perverse” was regulated by the Lula administration itself, through Law 14.790/2023 and the SPA/MF ordinances. It operated legally for 22 months, with licensing fees paid, age controls, self-exclusion, and revenue earmarked for health, sport, and public security.