Brazil’s Attorney General’s Office (AGU) has asked the Supreme Federal Court (STF) to declare unconstitutional the core of the two laws that authorised and regulated fixed-odds betting in the country, reversing the position it took two years ago.
The petition, filed on the evening of Friday, 2 October, in Direct Action of Unconstitutionality (ADI) 7.749 and signed by Attorney General Jorge Messias, targets Articles 29 to 35 of Law 13.756/2018 and most of Law 14.790/2023, including Articles 1 to 40, 43 to 48 and 54. Minister Luiz Fux is the rapporteur.
From “still constitutional” to unconstitutional
The Office of the Prosecutor General (PGR) filed ADI 7.749 on 11 November 2024, arguing that the two laws gave bettors insufficient protection and asking the STF to suspend and then invalidate the framework. Fux never ruled on the initial injunction request.
In October 2024, in the related ADI 7.721, the AGU told the court that Law 14.790/2023 was “still constitutional, subject to a process of progressive unconstitutionalisation.” It gave two reasons: striking down only the 2023 law would leave the weaker 2018 law in force, and the regulation was too recent to judge without a period of monitoring.
The AGU now says that period is over. With almost two years of data from the regulated market, it argues the government applied administrative safeguards at scale and the indicators still showed harm continuing or getting worse.
The evidence in the filing
On health, the petition says records under the public health system’s (SUS) pathological gambling codes rose 140% between January 2018 and December 2025. Self-exclusion requests reached 1,294,328, with 36.41% citing loss of control.
On household finances, the AGU estimates a net outflow of R$62.5 billion from family budgets in 2025 and says 268,000 families fell into severe delinquency, more than 90 days in arrears. It puts the annual social cost at R$30.6 billion and attributes R$143 billion lost to retail commerce between January 2023 and March 2026.
On crime, the filing estimates that 41% to 51% of the market is still clandestine and cites a 2024 police operation linking the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) to more than R$300 million in betting flows. More than 50,000 illegal websites have been taken down since 2025.
“The dragon was untameable”
Paragraph 119 of the AGU’s conclusion states that federal technical bodies found serious gaps in the challenged rules on authorisation procedures, technical system requirements, anti-money laundering, monitoring, supervision and advertising. It ends with one line:
“O ‘dragão’ era indomável.” (“The ‘dragon’ was untameable.”)
AGU petition in ADI 7.749, signed by Attorney General Jorge Messias
The paragraph before it describes the regime set by both laws as having been “extensively flawed,” written in the past tense.
What happens next
The federal government no longer defends the betting laws its own ministries enforce. The filing arrives in the same week the AGU sued 17 licensed operators for R$1 billion and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on the Flow podcast that bets will end. A poll this week also showed nearly 480,000 Brazilians backing the ban.
The case now sits with Fux, who can rule on the injunction request alone or take ADI 7.749 to the full court. If the STF grants the AGU’s request, fixed-odds betting in Brazil would lose its legal basis under both the 2018 and 2023 laws.
Source: Attorney General’s Office (AGU)
