President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed a provisional measure on Sept. 25 that formally ends legal sports betting and online casino operations in Brazil. MP 1,394 prohibits the operation, offer, intermediation, and advertising of fixed-odds betting nationwide, sports betting and online games included, and gives currently licensed platforms 10 days to make their websites and apps unavailable to customers.
Operators cannot accept new customer funds from the date of publication. Bets that can be settled during the 10-day transition window can still pay out, while wagers left unresolved after that have to be cancelled and refunded in full. Operators then get two days to show they have enough money available to return remaining balances, voided stakes, and unpaid winnings.
Banks and payment providers will receive customer-by-customer information from operators and have seven days to process those refunds. Anything that can’t be returned directly goes into a designated Caixa Econômica Federal account until the customer can be paid. Operators that fail to make the funds available face a daily fine of R$200,000 until they fix it.
Federal, state, and Federal District betting authorizations will be extinguished 30 days after publication. There will be no refund of authorization fees and no compensation for cancelled licences, even though federally authorized companies paid R$30 million each for five-year licences covering up to three brands. The Ministry of Finance said in August that 85 companies had been approved to operate fixed-odds betting nationally.
Advertising, marketing, and sponsorship of fixed-odds betting all fall under the ban too, with existing physical and digital advertising due to come down within 10 days. Banks and payment companies will be barred from processing betting transactions except those needed to close accounts and return customer money, while Anatel and Brazil’s internet governance bodies get the power to issue blocking orders against platforms that keep operating.
MP 1,394 also sets up a new interinstitutional committee coordinated by the Casa Civil to organize enforcement against illegal betting and advertising. The Federal Police, Federal Revenue Service, and financial intelligence unit Coaf will have to share information, and states and the Federal District must take their own enforcement measures.
Brazil’s regulated market had only been fully operational since Jan. 1, 2025, when Law 14,790 came into effect. The first authorization round brought in R$2.01 billion from 67 licence grants, with operators required to use .bet.br domains and follow rules on anti-money laundering, responsible gambling, advertising, and customer protection. Approvals continued afterward, reaching 85 companies by August 2026.
Industry groups had spent the run-up arguing for that model to stay. The Brazilian Institute for Responsible Gaming and the National Association of Games and Lotteries were among the organizations behind a joint manifesto on Sept. 24 warning that prohibition would push customers toward unlicensed operators rather than remove the demand, and calling for tougher enforcement of the existing rules instead.
Brazilian football stands to lose an entire sponsorship category. Betting companies currently sponsor clubs across the country, including plenty in Série A and Série B, and several operators started warning clubs this week that their agreements could be terminated if betting became illegal. Those deals will have to disappear during the transition period unless the measure changes.
The provisional measure has immediate force of law but still needs approval from Congress to stay in effect permanently. Brazil’s Constitution allows one of these to remain valid for an initial 60 days, extendable once by another 60 while lawmakers consider it. Until Congress acts, operators have to follow the shutdown timetable in MP 1,394.