Brazil orders fixed-odds betting market to wind down

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's Provisional Measure 1.394, published in an extraordinary Official Gazette edition on 25 September 2026, prohibits fixed-odds betting and takes effect on publication. The immediate task for operators is to stop incoming funds while preserving the systems, money and records needed to repay customers.

The prohibition covers physical and online fixed-odds betting on sports and virtual gaming events, including offers from overseas to people in Brazil. State and Federal District permissions are also affected. Other lottery forms authorised by law are expressly excluded: the measure is not a prohibition of every Brazilian lottery.

Closure does not end the operator's obligations

The measure separates the end of customer access from the extinction of authorisations. Article 4 extinguishes existing permissions 30 days after publication, without providing for repayment of licence fees or public compensation. Article 7 requires websites and applications to become inaccessible ten days after publication. The longer authorisation period is therefore not permission to keep the betting service open throughout those 30 days.

New customer deposits are prohibited from publication. Open bets whose results remain undetermined when access closes become void, with stakes returned in full; prizes from results already determined remain payable. Article 7 distinguishes those two classes of customer entitlement rather than treating every outstanding bet as an ordinary account balance.

Within two days after access closes, operators must ensure sufficient liquid funds for repayment and send individual customer balances, CPF identifiers and originating-account details to their financial or payment institutions. The same information and proof of available funds must go to the Prizes and Betting Secretariat. Refund funds must remain segregated from operators' own assets. Article 8 provides a daily R$200,000 fine for failure to meet these duties.

Financial and payment institutions then have seven days from receiving the information to return funds to an active account belonging to the customer. Amounts that cannot be returned must move to a designated Caixa Econômica Federal account for repayment. The operator remains responsible for unavailable funds and discrepancies. The statutory clock for the bank's repayment obligation starts when it receives the required information, not automatically when the betting website closes.

Payments, advertising and records remain connected

Article 14 prohibits facilitating betting transactions, except those needed for closure and customer refunds, under Central Bank regulation. Advertising and sponsorship are prohibited, with ten days to remove material. A limited exception covers previously published content containing incidental betting advertising; it is not a general right to continue promotions.

Operators must retain activity records for at least five years and continue the required Sigap reporting. Tax, anti-money-laundering, responsible-gambling and information duties relating to the authorised period survive closure. Switching off the customer website must therefore be distinguished from dismantling the refund and reporting operation.

The measure is a provisional measure with force of law on publication. The supplied record identifies no congressional vote, conversion into law or other next docket event. The ban and transition duties are operative on publication, while the measure's subsequent legislative fate remains unresolved; the official text is the record to monitor.