Lula Wins With 51.79% and Leaves Brazil's Betting Ban to Congress and the STF

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won Sunday's run-off on the day Brazil's federal betting licences expired, ending the industry's hope that a new government would withdraw the ban. What happens next rests with a Congress that has still not installed the committee due to report on the measure by 23 November, and with a Supreme Court justice who held his ruling until the vote was over.

• President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the 25 October run-off with 51.79% of valid votes to Senator Flávio Bolsonaro's 48.21%, reversing a first-round deficit of 45.16% to 47.03%
• The federal betting authorisations were extinguished under Provisional Measure 1.394 on polling day, after licensed sites went dark on 6 October
• Congress's record still shows the joint committee awaiting installation, with the measure blocking the agenda from 9 November and due for a vote by 23 November unless extended once by 60 days
• Justice Luiz Fux had not ruled on the three actions against the measure at the Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) by Monday, reportedly having chosen to wait for the election
• Regulus Partners, quoted by NEXT.io, puts the chance that the measure lapses with the licences gone at about 80%, and the chance that Fux suspends or strikes it down at about 5%

Lula Wins the Run-Off the Industry Hoped Would Change the Government

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers' Party (PT) won a fourth term on Sunday 25 October, beating Senator Flávio Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party (PL) by 51.79% of valid votes to 48.21% with 99.99% counted, according to Superior Electoral Court (TSE) figures reported by InfoMoney. NEXT.io's overnight report had him on 51.75% with 99.75% counted. Bolsonaro led the first round on 4 October with 47.03% to 45.16%, and NEXT.io says Lula is the first candidate since 1989 to finish second in the first round and then win; Polymarket had priced a Bolsonaro victory at about 78%.

Lula issued Provisional Measure 1.394, which bans online sports betting and casino in Brazil, on 25 September, nine days before the first round. On 22 October he told a YouTube live broadcast with Deputy André Janones that "não voltará mais a bet" (betting will not come back), according to Focus Gaming News and NEXT.io. Bolsonaro called the measure hypocritical, electioneering and populist, and promised to end online casino while keeping sports betting, NEXT.io reported. Public opinion sat with the government: Datafolha found 78% support for the ban at the start of October.

The Licences Expired on Polling Day

Under the measure, new deposits stopped at once, voluntary withdrawals closed on 5 October and licensed sites went offline on 6 October. The federal authorisations, 85 of them covering 188 brands by BNLData's count, were extinguished on 25 October. Each cost R$30 million, approximately $5.8 million, and the fees have not been refunded, NEXT.io notes.

Enforcement continued through the campaign. The Attorney General's Office (AGU) sued eight companies that missed the 7 October deadline to report players' final balances, and a Rio de Janeiro federal court granted the first injunction, against Select Operations, with a daily fine of R$50,000, approximately $9,600, according to the AGU. On 23 October a São Paulo federal judge ordered seven companies, including Blaze operator Foggo Entertainment, to report balances and keep bettors' money segregated under the same fine, BNLData reported. The government puts the sum still owed to bettors at R$159 million, approximately $31 million.

Congress Has 28 Days and No Committee

Congress's record for the measure still reads "aguardando instalação da comissão" (awaiting installation of the committee), as it has since 21 October. The joint committee was designated on 30 September and drew 99 amendments before filing closed on 13 October, but the record shows no chair, rapporteur or meeting. The calendar has the measure blocking each chamber's agenda from 9 November and due for a vote by 23 November.

Article 62 of the Constitution allows that deadline to be extended once by 60 days and suspends the count during Congress's recess, which runs from 23 December to 1 February; NEXT.io calculates that the measure could stay in force until March 2027. A measure not converted in time loses effect, but unless Congress passes a legislative decree within 60 days, relations formed while it was in force remain governed by it. A lapsed measure cannot be reissued in the same legislative session.

Fux Held His Ruling Until After the Vote

At the STF, Justice Luiz Fux is rapporteur for ADIs 8024, 8027 and 8028, the three direct actions of unconstitutionality against the measure; ADI 8027 was brought by the National Association of Games and Lotteries (ANJL). On Monday none of the three dockets showed a decision, though new petitions were entered in ADI 8027 on 24 October and on polling day. BNLData reported on Sunday, citing the court's corridors, that Fux chose to wait because any earlier decision would be seen as interfering in the election; NEXT.io, citing Poder360, says he is expected to decide on suspension before the full court rules. The AGU has asked him to keep the ban in full.

The Vote Removed the Industry's Political Exit

Until Sunday operators had a route that did not run through the courts: a Bolsonaro government that, on his own promise, would have kept sports betting and could have withdrawn or rewritten the measure. That route is gone. The president who issued the ban has won on a campaign that featured it, so the question is now whether Congress or the court will force a change the government will not make. Regulus Partners expects a right-leaning Congress to produce gridlock rather than a decision, and legislators who want the licensed market back must argue channelisation against a 78% poll.

Inaction Favours the Government

The most consequential fact on the Congress page is an absence. The record notes that the joint committee must report before either plenary votes, and four weeks after designation it has not met. Conversion with amendments, the industry's best realistic outcome, needs officers, a report drawn from 99 amendments and two plenary votes in time, and an extension would carry the final weeks past 1 February, when the Congress elected on 4 October takes its seats. If Congress does nothing, the measure lapses, but Article 62 keeps relations formed under it governed by it, so a lapse would not by itself bring the licences back. That is Regulus's 80% scenario: limbo, settled by litigation. It gives an amended measure that restricts rather than reopens the market about 10%, and Lula building majorities to validate the ban about 5%. These are analysts' judgements.

The Court Is the Faster Route, and the Narrower One

Fux can act in a day. Even a suspension would not automatically restore the licences, Regulus says, and BNLData notes that an injunction in a direct action normally takes effect only from the day it is granted unless the court makes it retroactive, and that a single justice's decision needs the full court's confirmation. Meanwhile the sites have been dark for three weeks and Evolution has closed its Brazilian studio; each week makes any return more a restart than a reopening.

Brazil's voters have kept in office the government that closed its licensed betting market, and the industry's case must now be won in a Congress that has not begun to hear it. On Regulus's reading, the likeliest outcome is not a vote either way but a lapse that leaves the licences gone and the law unsettled.