The provisional measure that banned the bets also wipes out state licences — and puts the banks in charge of refunds

The federal government has banned fixed-odds betting in Brazil by provisional measure. Medida Provisória No. 1,394, of 25 September 2026, appeared in special edition 182-A of the Diário Oficial da União on the night of the same day and has been in force since publication (art. 30).

The announcement came in the afternoon, in São Paulo. The text arrived hours later, and it differs from the announcement on points that matter to anyone with money sitting on a platform, anyone who paid for a licence, and anyone processing payments.

What the MP bans

Art. 1 bans, across the entire national territory, "the exploitation, offering, intermediation and advertising of fixed-odds betting lotteries, in physical or virtual form, including when carried out by an operator based abroad that offers them to a person located in the national territory". The ban reaches both of the activities Law 14.790 allowed: betting on real sporting events and betting on online games (§ 1). Other lotteries authorised by law are left out (§ 2).

To that end, the MP repeals the chapter of Law 13.756 that created fixed-odds betting and most of Law 14.790: articles 1 to 40, except for arts. 21-A and 24-A to 24-C, plus articles 43 to 48 and 54. What survives is the sanctions regime (arts. 41 and 42) and the duties imposed on payment institutions by Law 15.358 in March (arts. 21-A and 24-A to 24-C). And the sole paragraph of art. 29 keeps both laws applicable to everything that happened while the authorisations were valid.

The grant fee does not come back

Authorisations granted under Law 14.790 "shall be extinguished at the end of a thirty-day period, counted from the date of publication" (art. 4). That extinction, says the sole paragraph, "arises from reasons of public interest and confers on the betting operator no right to the refund, in whole or in part, of the grant consideration", "nor to compensation from the Public Administration".

The grant fee is the amount paid to obtain the authorisation: Law 14.790 capped it at R$ 30 million per act, covering up to three brands (art. 12, sole paragraph). That is the money the text declares non-refundable.

The same law guaranteed operators already in business an adaptation period of "not less than 6 (six) months" (art. 9, sole paragraph). That provision is among those repealed. The transition is now the MP's own: thirty days.

Two further consequences have gone largely unnoticed. Art. 6 bars new authorisations and declares pending applications "moot", which also puts an end to the draft ordinance rewriting the authorisation rules that we analysed here. And art. 13 suspends sanctioning administrative proceedings against operators "not definitively adjudicated" by the date of publication, which "shall be definitively closed" if the operator meets the transition obligations on time.

The states are swept into the same package

This is where the MP goes further than the announcement let on. Art. 2 extends the ban "to the exploitation of fixed-odds betting lotteries in the States and in the Federal District", and § 1 provides that state and district concessions, permissions and authorisations "shall be extinguished" within the same thirty-day period.

The legal design leaves an obvious tension. The MP repeals Chapter V of Law 13.756, which deals with federal fixed-odds betting, but does not repeal Chapter V-A, which deals with state lotteries. That chapter still contains art. 35-A, whose main clause authorises the states to exploit "only the lottery modalities provided for in federal legislation", and whose § 8 preserved, back in 2023, state concessions already under way, "with due regard for vested rights and perfected legal acts". The federal law that remains in force protects the very state licences the MP extinguishes.

Then there is the Supreme Court. In 2020, in ADPFs 492 and 493, the Court held that "the member states hold administrative competence to exploit lotteries" and that the Union's exclusive competence to legislate on lotteries "does not preclude the material competence of state entities to exploit these activities". The 2020 case is not identical: there, the Union reserved exploitation for itself, whereas here the MP bans the modality for everyone, itself included. And the sole paragraph of art. 4, which denies refunds and compensation, refers to the grant fee collected under Law 14.790: on what the states charged, the MP says nothing. That is the avenue along which the termination of state licences is likely to be litigated.

The bank becomes the refund counter

The operational side of the MP runs almost entirely through the financial system.

Inflows stop on day one. As of publication, "the entry of new funds into transactional accounts is prohibited" (art. 7, § 1). The only carve-out is money from the redemption of investments made with bettors' funds, and only to pay what the MP requires to be paid.

The refund clock. Ten days after publication, websites and apps must go offline, "under penalty of blocking" (art. 7), and within the same period advertising and sponsorship material must be withdrawn (art. 16, § 2). Bets still open at that moment "shall be deemed void", with "full restitution of the amounts wagered, with deductions of any nature prohibited" (§ 2), and prizes already determined remain payable (§ 3). Within two days, the operator segregates the funds and sends the institutions holding its accounts "the itemised list of bettors, indicating the taxpayer registry number (CPF), the amounts to be refunded and the accounts from which the funds originated" (art. 8, II), on pain of a daily fine of R$ 200,000 (§ 2). The institution then has seven days from receipt of the list to make the refund "by transfer to an active deposit or payment account held by the bettor", preferably to the account the money came from (art. 9, § 1). Whatever cannot be refunded goes to a dedicated account at Caixa Econômica Federal, under the supervision of the Ministry of Finance (§ 3).

What banks are now forbidden to do. Art. 14 bars financial institutions, payment institutions and the institutors and participants of payment arrangements, "including instant payment arrangements", from "processing, settling or enabling transactions destined for fixed-odds betting lotteries, as regulated by the Banco Central do Brasil". The arrangement's institutor must impose the rule on all participants, including those not authorised by the central bank, and may exclude them (§ 1). Art. 15 directs the Banco Central to create an "electronic data communication framework to enable the rejection of transactions and the interbank return" of illegal betting funds in real-time transfers. In practice, a Pix refund mechanism purpose-built for betting.

What changes in the blocking regime already in place. Art. 21-A of Law 14.790, which underpins the 24-hour blocking of an irregular operator's account under CMN Resolution No. 5.320 (the clock we described here), survives and gains two things under art. 28 of the MP: a duty to "report to the Council for Financial Activities Control the financial transactions related to the irregular operator, including as regards atypical situations", and forfeiture to the Union of the funds in blocked accounts, "declared in administrative proceedings" and which "shall not depend on prior judicial proceedings" (§ 2-A).

What the announcement said and the text does not

A timetable circulated during the day with dates that are nowhere in the MP. The text says nothing about a "voluntary withdrawal" window until 5 October, nor about funds going to Caixa after 180 days. Under the text, the bettor does not need to withdraw anything: the money comes back through the institution, by CPF, and whatever does not come back goes to the dedicated Caixa account.

It was also reported that the advertising ban would not reach journalistic content. The MP contains no such carve-out. What art. 17 does carve out is something else: content published before the MP in which betting advertising appears incidentally. The journalistic exception appears in the draft bill creating betting-related criminal offences, signed at the same event and still to go to Congress — not in the MP. The bill comes separately because the Constitution prohibits provisional measures on criminal law (art. 62, § 1, I, "b"). Once the text reaches Congress with a number, we will return to it.

The MP has three further fronts that do not fit here in detail. Application providers acquire a "duty of care" to prevent the circulation of betting advertising, with fines of up to 10% of their revenue in the country (arts. 19 and 22). App stores and operating systems must prevent the apps from being made available (art. 21). And site blocking runs through Anatel and the Comitê Gestor da Internet (art. 23).

The dates

The MP does not say whether the deadlines run in calendar days or business days, and the dates above assume calendar days, not an official schedule. The MP lapses if it is not converted into law within sixty days, extendable once for an equal period, with the count suspended during congressional recess (Constitution, art. 62, §§ 3 and 4). If it is not converted, Congress regulates the legal relations it created. If Congress fails to do so within sixty days, those relations remain governed by the MP (§ 11).

In one line

MP 1.394 ends federal and state betting in thirty days, refunds no grant fee, and hands the financial system the job of returning bettors' money and blocking whatever comes next.

Sources

• Diário Oficial da União — Medida Provisória nº 1.394, de 25 de setembro de 2026, special edition 182-A
• Betting Law — Lei nº 14.790, de 29 de dezembro de 2023, arts. 9, 12 and 21-A
• Lei nº 13.756, de 12 de dezembro de 2018, Chapters V and V-A, art. 35-A
• Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF) — Informativo 993, ADPFs 492 e 493
• Constituição Federal, art. 62
• CyberX — Since Friday, banks have 24 hours to block an illegal betting operator's account
• CyberX — Interposed persons and virtual offices: the draft that rewrites betting authorisation