Brazil: all our coverage

Resolution BCB 590 puts the payments ban in Provisional Measure 1.394 into force in three articles and dates the duty from the day the measure was published. It leaves undone the one tool the measure told the Central Bank to build for Pix, the rail that carried most of Brazil's betting money.

Brazil's betting ban does not stop at the federal licences: it also ends the fixed-odds licences issued by the states, and Rio de Janeiro's lottery says it will comply. Football, which took more than R$1 billion from betting sponsors last year, meets the Sports Ministry in Brasília on Tuesday.

The government wants operating a betting site to carry four to six years in prison and has asked Congress to treat the bill as urgent. At the same time, operators' associations have asked the Supreme Federal Tribunal to suspend the ban, arguing that it fails the Constitution's own test for a provisional measure.

Entain, Flutter, Allwyn, Better Collective, Acroud and DigiPlus have all told investors what Brazil's ban on fixed-odds betting means for them. For the big operators it is a trim to guidance; for Better Collective, whose shares traded a quarter lower on Monday, it removes about 12% of expected revenue.

Provisional Measure 1.394 ends Brazil's licensed betting market less than two years after it opened, extinguishes every licence within 30 days and rules out refunding the R$30 million each operator paid for one. It took effect on Friday, nine days before the first round of the presidential election.

Procon-RJ is sanctioning operators under consumer law, not gambling law, with fines of up to R$14 million each. Its message, as Brasília prepares to restrict the market, is that a federal licence does not exempt a bet from the Consumer Defence Code.

Brazil's president told a campaign rally that he will "end the bets", and a provisional measure is reported to be due on Friday. Licensed operators have started notifying football clubs that shirt deals worth more than R$1 billion could be terminated, while the government is still choosing between a full ban and an online-casino ban.

Receita Federal collected R$9.91 billion from betting and gambling businesses in the first eight months of 2026, on its own figures, up from R$5.86 billion a year earlier. On the day the data came out, President Lula used the UN General Assembly to say Brazil would not tolerate the industry's business model, while reports suggest the measure his government is preparing would restrict advertising rather than ban the activity.

The Câmara Especial granted urgent relief against Apple within five days, overturning a first-instance judge who had put the question off for 15 days to hear the company first. The ruling rests on the finding that Apple admits, classifies, distributes and takes payment for the apps, even though it wrote none of them.

The Supreme Court justice refused ANJL's injunction against a state decree barring betting sponsorship on public property, citing the CPI report and public health; ANJL will appeal to the full court. The same day, Lula told Uruguay's president he wants to learn from a model that is a single state platform with a US$700 million illegal market beside it, and ANJL's own count found 6,409 unlicensed domains live last week.

Lula's communications chief wants a full ban before the 4 October first round; the Finance Ministry says it would cost about R$12 billion the 2027 budget cannot spare. The compromise being floated is to prohibit online casino and restrict advertising while sports betting survives. Lula meets the clubs on Tuesday.

The state court that granted Spribe an injunction against NSX in April, then revoked it in July when a federal court suspended the developer's trademark, has now ruled on the merits: no trademark infringement, no copyright infringement, no unfair competition. It is the third Brazilian decision in a row to go against the Estonian studio, three days after a Brasília judge ordered it to police its own distribution.

Diomar Tadeu Dantas de Farias was taken into preventive custody in Jacumã on Thursday morning as the second phase of the money-laundering inquiry served five more warrants against the bookmaker's leadership. The Receita Federal says offshore companies were set up to make a Brazilian-run operation look foreign; the law firm that represents Pixbet says it only ever did the lawyering.

Dario Durigan is the first minister to speak since UOL reported a decree was days away, and he cited a R$62 billion figure that confuses deposits with revenue. Flamengo, Fluminense, Vasco and Botafogo, with the Rio, São Paulo and Alagoas federations, published a note titled "The End of Brazilian Football". The industry puts its exposure at R$120 billion and its lawyers are talking about compensation.

UOL reports the provisional measure would ban online games outright and restrict sports betting, with insiders treating it as "close to the extinction" of online casino. Clubs put R$1bn of sponsorship at risk and are drafting a note calling it electioneering; operators are weighing a court challenge; two associations have published open letters. The president says new measures come "soon".

In a WhatsApp exchange from October 2024 found on the phone of a former Federal Police clerk, the Banco Master owner is described as the "boss" who owns the bookmaker and a quarter of Atlético Mineiro. The messages are now part of the Compliance Zero inquiry. Vorcaro's lawyers will not comment; Pixbet says he has never held a stake.

Two days after calling betting "a disease", the president told a podcast there is "no good bet and bad bet" and that his campaign is weighing measures before the election. The licensed operators' association says the cases he cites predate regulation, and warns of a "paradox" in which a ban pushes the vulnerable into the illegal market.

A consumer-protection body in Espírito Santo has served nine celebrities with a 58-page recommendation to reassess their bookmaker deals, citing a R$38.8 billion social cost and a survey in which 57% said celebrities influenced them to bet. It declares nothing illegal, and says that is the point.

The ANJL has sent Romeu Zema, the Novo party's candidate whose campaign wants betting abolished outright, an extrajudicial notice demanding a public correction of "false" statements about the regulated market, under threat of a damages claim. It is the association's second notification this week and its third target this year.

The ANJL wants the platforms to run a permanent programme to find, remove, de-index and block the influencers who funnel Brazilians to unlicensed betting sites, and to stop the accounts coming back under new names. It puts the illegal market at 38% to 44%.

Five months after the Finance Ministry ordered the site blocked, its markets on the October election are still reachable and a Portuguese-language account is promoting a candidate's lead among bettors. The AGU has asked for the file.

Prosecutors want R$110m from the Estonian developer for letting the "little plane" fly on unauthorised sites. The judge refused to ground the game outright, but ordered Spribe to name every partner, suspend the illegal integrations and geo-block, at R$100,000 a day.

Portaria 2,750 turns June's "financial asphyxiation" decree into a procedure: a red-flag list for Pix, a 24-hour block on notification, forfeiture of what is frozen, joint tax liability for banks that keep processing, and a safe harbour for those that report.

Two days of presidential remarks, a reported provisional measure in the Civil House and a finance minister who says he wants regulation "like tobacco" rather than a ban. Brazil's operators are waiting to find out which voice wins.