Brazil's SPA consults on fixed-odds betting authorisation rules

Brazil's Secretaria de Prêmios e Apostas (SPA), the Ministry of Finance unit responsible for the country's betting regulatory framework, opened a public consultation on 27 July 2026 on the *portaria* (ministerial ordinance) that will govern how operators formally obtain commercial authorisation to operate fixed-odds betting as a lottery modality — one of the last major instruments outstanding under the framework established by Lei 14.790/2023.

The consultation window runs for 45 days, closing on 9 September 2026. Contributions may be submitted by any individual or legal entity via the Brasil Participativo platform (https://brasilparticipativo.presidencia.gov.br), the federal government's standard digital participation channel.

Lei 14.790/2023 established the legal basis for fixed-odds betting; subsequent SPA normatives have addressed advertising controls, responsible gambling obligations and operator conduct. The authorisation ordinance sits above all of these at the market-entry layer: it will set the conditions — capital requirements, technical standards, fit-and-proper thresholds and any other criteria the SPA determines — under which operators may formally enter the market.

The SPA published a 2026–27 regulatory agenda in April that listed authorisation conditions among its workstreams (see SPA Agenda Regulatória 2026–27, available via www.gov.br/fazenda). This consultation moves that workstream from internal drafting to public scrutiny before the ordinance is finalised.

For compliance and licensing teams, 9 September 2026 is the submission deadline. Any operator, legal adviser or trade body with a view on the authorisation criteria must submit through Brasil Participativo before that date. The SPA has not published the draft ordinance text in the primary briefing; teams should access the platform directly to review the consultation document and confirm the specific conditions under consultation.

The ordinance also carries direct relevance for operators currently holding provisional authorisations or operating under transitional arrangements. The final text will define the permanent authorisation pathway, and any divergence between transitional conditions and the final rules will require internal policy updates.

The consultation will draw attention from two directions: operators seeking clarity on entry conditions and consumer advocates watching whether the ordinance addresses problem-gambling safeguards at the licensing gate rather than only post-authorisation. Both have until 9 September to put their positions on record.

After the consultation closes, the SPA will consolidate contributions before publishing the final ordinance; the timeline for that publication has not been specified in the source document. Teams tracking Brazil's betting framework should also monitor the SPA's remaining 2026–27 agenda workstreams, several of which feed into the same authorisation architecture.