Fux Sets 3 November Public Hearing on Brazil's Betting Ban and Invites 10 Clubs

Justice Luiz Fux has met the industry's demand for an injunction against Provisional Measure 1.394 with a hearing rather than a decision. Twenty-six bodies, from the government to Flamengo and Corinthians, will speak at the Supreme Federal Tribunal next Tuesday, with the licences already extinguished.

• Justice Luiz Fux of the Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) has called a public hearing on Provisional Measure 1.394, the online betting ban in Brazil, for 10:00 on Tuesday 3 November
• The order names 26 participants, among them the Attorney General's Office (AGU), the Finance Ministry, ten football clubs and the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF)
• It was signed on the day the ANJL and IBJR asked Fux to rule at once, having argued that a hearing held after the market's extinction would not be coherent
• A public hearing gathers technical evidence and decides nothing, and on Tuesday the dockets of ADIs 8024, 8027 and 8028 showed no decision
• Congress has still not installed the joint committee on the measure, which is due for a vote by 23 November

Fux Answers the Demand for a Ruling With a Hearing

Fux, who took the cases as rapporteur, signed the order on Monday 26 October in ADI 8027, brought by the National Association of Games and Lotteries (ANJL). The ADI 8027 docket records the hearing for 3 November at 10:00 in the session room of the court's Second Panel. The order says it answers requests from the AGU, which had asked for a new hearing in early October, the authors of ADI 8027 and the amici curiae. The Brazilian trade title BNLData first reported it.

Seven participants have brought actions: the National Confederation of Commerce (CNC), the Prosecutor-General of the Republic, the National Association for Legal Certainty in Games and Betting (ANSEJA), the ANJL, the Brazilian Institute for Responsible Gaming (IBJR), the National Association of Mayors and Deputy Mayors (ANPV) and Abracopel, for state lottery concessionaires. The government side is the AGU and the Finance Ministry. Six further bodies include the broadcasters' association ABERT, the National Confederation of Industry (CNI) and the International Gaming Association (AIGAMING).

The clubs are Flamengo, Fluminense, Botafogo, Cruzeiro, São Paulo, Corinthians, Ponte Preta, Vitória, Guarani and Portuguesa. No operator is named, and neither the Health nor the Justice Ministry appears, BNLData notes. For the 2024 hearing on the betting law, Fux had invited the health minister, according to the STF.

What a Public Hearing Is, and Is Not

Article 9 of Law 9.868/1999 lets a rapporteur, where facts need clarifying, hear "pessoas com experiência e autoridade na matéria" (people with experience and authority in the matter). Convening the 2024 hearing, Fux said the aim was not to gather legal arguments but to clarify technical questions, and the court took registrations by email. Monday's order names its participants and says nothing about registration, speaking time or broadcast.

The hearing decides nothing. Under the same law an injunction needs an absolute majority of the court outside recess, and takes effect from the date of decision unless the court makes it retroactive.

The Associations Had Asked for a Decision That Day

On Monday the ANJL and IBJR filed an urgent petition in ADI 8027 asking Fux to rule that day, BNLData reports. They listed four courts and bodies that had referred them back to the STF and concluded "não há mais a quem recorrer" (there is no one left to appeal to). Holding a hearing "depois de consumada a extinção do mercado" (after the market's extinction is complete) was not coherent, they wrote. Among their fallback requests, however, was suspension at least until the hearing.

The Brazilian Association of International Gaming Operators and Providers (ABRAJOGO), the São Paulo operators' union Sindibets SP and the Association of Women in the Gaming Industry (AMIG) filed a memorial in ADI 8024, according to BNLData. It estimates that five-year licences costing R$30 million, approximately $5.8 million, each, used for about 20 months, leave at least R$1.6 billion, approximately $308 million, to refund.

The Hearing Turns an Emergency Into an Evidence Exercise

The associations framed a race against a deadline; the order recasts it as a question of fact. But the licences have lapsed, and an injunction normally runs only from the day it is granted, so every day without one widens the gap a retroactive order would have to bridge. Fux could still suspend the measure before 3 November, as the associations' own fallback request invites. He has not.

The Invitation List Favours the Economic Case

The government will be two voices among 26. The CNC and the Prosecutor-General, whose actions attack the 2023 betting law itself, are the participants on record against legal betting; most other plaintiffs are challenging the ban. Eleven football bodies will speak to sponsorship income; the ANJL and IBJR petition puts betting companies' 2025 investment in Série A at over R$1 billion, approximately $192 million, or 34% of clubs' commercial revenue. With no Health Ministry listed, the public-health case falls to the AGU and the Finance Ministry.

Every Week of Process Has a Market Cost

In 2024 the STF said hearing specialists would lend its decision democratic legitimacy, and a ruling reached after this list has spoken will be harder to dismiss as one-sided. But the hearing falls six days before the measure starts blocking Congress's agendas, and licensed sites have been offline since 6 October. Unauthorised domains rose from 1,195 on the eve of the measure to 3,348 by 15 October, according to Bet Legal observatory figures cited in the associations' petition. Channelisation will be argued inside the room while it is tested outside.

The court has chosen to hear the argument in full before deciding it. For operators whose licences have already gone, the hearing is a forum, not a remedy.