Brazil's Supreme Court hears 28 bodies on the betting ban on 3 November

Brazil's Supreme Federal Court will hear 28 public bodies, football clubs and industry groups on 3 November on the provisional measure that bans fixed-odds betting, after Justice Luiz Fux published the schedule on 28 October, the court said in a news release.

The public hearing is part of Direct Action of Unconstitutionality (ADI) 8027, for which Fux is the rapporteur. It concerns Provisional Measure 1.394/2026, which prohibits fixed-odds betting, known in Brazil as bets, and provides for the end of the authorisations granted to companies in the sector. Each participant has at most ten minutes, and the hearing runs from 10 a.m. in the session room of the court's Second Panel, broadcast on TV Justiça, Rádio Justiça and the court's YouTube channel.

Who speaks, and in what order

The order signed by Fux sets the running order. Ten football clubs open the morning: Flamengo, Fluminense, the Botafogo football company, Cruzeiro, São Paulo, Corinthians, Ponte Preta, Vitória, Guarani and Portuguesa, followed by the Brazilian Football Confederation and the Brazilian Olympic Committee.

The afternoon opens with the federal government's side: the Attorney General's Office (AGU), the Finance Ministry, the Sports Ministry and the Prosecutor General's Office. Then come the national confederation of commerce (CNC), the National Association for Legal Certainty in Games and Betting (Anseja), the National Association of Games and Lotteries (ANJL), the Brazilian Institute for Responsible Gaming (IBJR), the national association of mayors and deputy mayors, the association of state lottery concessionaires (Abracopel), the broadcasters' association ABERT, the criminal lawyers' association ABRACRIM and the national confederation of industry (CNI). The economic regulation laboratory of Rio de Janeiro State University, the Brazilian Association for Economic Freedom and the International Gaming Association (AIGAMING) close the day. Two intervals split the day into three blocks, the last opening at 4.40 p.m. Participants had until 3 p.m. on 29 October to name up to two representatives each.

When Fux called the hearing on 27 October, the court said the order provided for 26 institutions and entities; the schedule of 28 October names 28. The court said the hearing answers requests from the AGU, from ANJL and from entities admitted to the case as amici curiae. The AGU argued that experience since the previous hearing, held in November 2024 with more than 50 specialists and representatives of public bodies and civil society, new evidence on the effects of betting and the issue of the measure justified updating the debate.

What the challengers ask

ANJL, which filed ADI 8027, asks the court to suspend the measure immediately and, at the end of the case, to declare it unconstitutional. It also asks the court to recognise the validity of the laws that regulate fixed-odds betting, Law 14.790/2023 and chapter V of Law 13.756/2018. The same measure is challenged in ADIs 8024, 8028 and 8035, and Law 14.790/2023 itself in ADIs 7721, 7723 and 7749, which Fux reports; his order is to be copied into all six case files.

Anseja's challenge, ADI 8024, sets out what the measure does. The court reported on 28 September that the measure, issued on Friday 25 September, extinguishes federal, state and district authorisations and provides that operators will not be entitled to a refund of their licence fees or to compensation. It required operators to take down betting websites and apps ten days after publication and set the end of authorisations for 25 October. Anseja argues that the measure lacked the urgency the Constitution requires, came without an estimate of its budget and financial impact, and breaches legal certainty, free enterprise and the federal pact. In the alternative, it asks for a transition of at least 180 days and for site blocking and loss of funds to depend on a court decision.

The hearing is not a ruling, and the court's releases do not say when Fux will decide on the requests for suspension. The cases set the measure against the regulated market built under Law 14.790/2023, and the order closes the hearing at 5.10 p.m. For other recent Brazilian decisions on market rules, see EM Governance Review's reports on CADE's Soy Moratorium case and on CADE's merger notification consultations.