Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF) Justice Luiz Fux has suspended every lawsuit in the country’s courts that challenges Provisional Measure (MP) 1,394/2026, the September decree behind the Brazil betting ban, until the STF rules on whether the ban is constitutional.
Fux granted a request from the Office of the Prosecutor General (PGR), according to CNN Brasil, which reported the decision on 9 November. It is a preliminary injunction, so the STF’s full bench must still confirm it.
Why Fux froze the Brazil betting ban cases
Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet asked Fux on 6 November to halt the cases. Some lower courts had accepted operators’ requests to reopen on the grounds that the MP is unconstitutional, even though the STF has not ruled on that question. According to the PGR, this was producing an “asymmetric application of the rule” to the companies it covers. More than 10 such cases were pending in São Paulo alone, according to the PGR as reported by Agência Brasil.
There is a risk of legal uncertainty arising from the possibility of multiple decisions pointing in divergent directions, aggravated by the fact that this concerns the potential release of an activity recognised as harmful and of high social risk, namely the operation of fixed-odds betting.
Luiz Fux, Justice, Supreme Federal Court (STF), in his decision (translated from Portuguese)
The Stake and CDA Gaming rulings
The request followed a ruling on 5 November by Adriana Pileggi de Soveral, a judge at the Federal Regional Court of the 3rd Region (TRF-3), that allowed CDA Gaming to restart 3 betting sites: Casa de Apostas, Betsul and Jogo Online, Metrópoles reported. The TRF-3’s president, Luís Antonio Johonsom di Salvo, suspended that order on 6 November after an appeal from the Attorney General’s Office (AGU).
Stake was the first operator to win such a ruling. On 8 October, Judge Cristiane Farias Rodrigues dos Santos of the 9th Federal Civil Court of São Paulo allowed Stake Brazil to keep operating until 25 October, when federal authorisations lapsed under the MP. Di Salvo suspended that injunction the next day at the AGU’s request, SBT News reported, accepting the government’s argument that it created an exception to the rule applied to every other platform.
The AGU has defended the ban at the STF since October, when it asked the court to strike down the betting laws that created the licensed market.
Four challenges still pending
The lower-court cases stay frozen until the STF rules on 4 direct actions of unconstitutionality (ADIs) against the MP, numbers 8,024, 8,027, 8,028 and 8,035, according to Metrópoles. Sector bodies including the National Association of Games and Lotteries (ANJL) and the Brazilian Institute for Responsible Gaming (IBJR) filed them, arguing that ending a licensed market overnight breaches legal certainty, free competition and due process, and intrudes on the states’ powers.
Fux heard the government, operators, clubs and business groups at a public hearing on 3 November. Ministries argued the ban protects household finances and health; clubs set out the sponsorship money at risk. Flamengo put its exposure at R$430m a year and Fluminense at R$200m, while Vitória said its betting contracts were worth R$45m. Fux closed the hearing without a ruling and said the court would need time to prepare a vote.
Next steps
No date has been set for the STF judgment on the 4 ADIs, and the full bench has yet to vote on Fux’s injunction. In Congress, the MP lapses unless lawmakers convert it into law within 120 days of publication; the government wants the vote held by 20 December.
Source: Supreme Federal Court (STF)
