Brazil’s Supreme Court Hears the Betting Ban

Justice Luiz Fux of Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court thinks online betting should be banned, and he said so on Tuesday, November 3, at the opening of a public hearing on the betting ban Lula signed in September. He also said the court still has to weigh legal certainty before it rules, and the hearing that followed ran for about 10 hours.

Fux is the rapporteur, the justice who writes the lead opinion, in ADI 8027, the challenge brought by the National Association of Games and Lotteries, known as ANJL. The same Provisional Measure 1,394/2026 is challenged in ADIs 8024, 8028 and 8035, and the 2023 law that regulated bets faces three older cases. Fux said the hearing was for information only and that no decision would come out of it.

Fux Wants a Ban, Not a Cliff

He didn’t hide where he stands. “I became convinced that gambling addiction is a public health problem, an economic problem, and that it should be banished from national sports,” Fux said, in remarks reported by CNN Brasil. He called criticism that the guest list favored the industry “uninformed”. CNN Brasil had counted at least 22 of the 34 invited groups as public opponents of the ban.

Then came the caveat the operators wanted to hear. His view depends on the rest of the court, Fux said, and with a provisional measure already in force the court must consider legal certainty. He suggested the full court should look at modulation of effects, setting conditions or deadlines for any ban that survives.

The court’s own summary lists the new questions he wants answered. They are legal certainty, whether the measure can reach back over existing rights, the protection of legitimate expectations and whether it met the constitution’s test of relevance and urgency, the bar any provisional measure has to clear.

The Government Argues in Numbers

Lula’s ministers came with figures. Jorge Messias, the solicitor general who heads the AGU, cited preliminary Finance Ministry data showing licensed operators took R$620 billion in bets in 2025 and kept R$36.9 billion as revenue. Rodrigo Toneto, the Finance Ministry’s fiscal policy undersecretary, put the transfer from families to the sector at R$62 billion and said the chance of default rises almost 40% once a person starts betting.

Toneto accepted that the 2025 rules widened oversight, but said they didn’t contain the damage. He also said early readings of Pix payments and retail demand already suggest a positive reaction since the ban. Health Minister Alexandre Padilha said demand for public treatment of gambling addiction grew more than 200% between 2018 and 2026, and that 1.2 million people had asked to self-exclude from betting sites.

Enforcement Has Already Started

The ban is being enforced while the court thinks. Victor Oliveira Fernandes, the Justice Ministry’s national digital rights secretary, said the ministry asked for more than 36,000 illegal betting sites to be taken down between September 25 and October 29, along with thousands of profiles, pages and groups that promoted them.

Clubs Count the Cost

Football made the loudest case against. Flávio Willeman, Flamengo’s vice president, said the ban could cost the club about R$430 million a year in revenue and affect more than 1,200 employees and its Olympic sports. Fluminense put its own hit at R$200 million. Club after club attacked the 10 days the measure gave them to strip betting ads and sponsor logos.

The CBF, Brazil’s football confederation, asked for a transition running to the 2030 World Cup. Grêmio went further and offered a compromise that matters to anyone who plays online: keep the ban on online casinos, but allow sports betting under strict rules. The body that distributes betting money to sport, the Escritório Nacional de Rateio, also suggested separating sports betting from online casino.

Licenses Gone, Fees Kept

ANJL’s lawyer, Pietro Cardia Lorenzoni, said regulation was working, citing Finance Ministry figures that showed betting deposits down 32% over the last three months analyzed in 2026 against 2025. He and others pressed on money that won’t come back. Operators paid R$30 million for five-year licenses, and the measure says their termination gives no right to a full or partial refund of that fee, “nor to compensation from the government.”

Those licenses ended 30 days after the measure was published on September 25, and the 85 federal authorizations lapsed on October 25. Lower courts have offered little relief, and Stake’s court-ordered reprieve was suspended on appeal after about 31 hours.

One Joint Ruling, No Date

The case moved again the next day. On Wednesday, November 4, the full court heard arguments in ADPF 1212, the challenge to municipal lotteries, and Chief Justice Edson Fachin then suspended that trial, to resume “at an opportune date.” Justice Flávio Dino proposed judging every gambling case together, and Fachin said the court would move toward a joint judgment in due course. That package takes in the challenges to the 2023 law, the four actions against the measure and RE 966177, the appeal over Brazil’s 1941 ban on games of chance. Fux said he will need time to write his opinion.

That leaves the measure in force and the clock with Congress. The congressional record shows the deliberation window running to November 23, with the measure locking the agenda from November 9, and CNN Brasil reports Congress has up to 120 days in all. As of November 5, the joint committee that must review it hadn’t been installed, and 100 amendments had been filed.

Fux also said he kept the cases off the calendar during the election campaign so the court wouldn’t interfere in the vote. The vote is over, the licenses are gone, and the justice writing the lead opinion has already said bets should be banned.