Brazil Bans Online Betting: What MP 1,394 Does to Licences, Player Funds and Ads, and Where Operators Go Next

Two clocks, one lost fee

On 25 September 2026, in an extra edition of the Diário Oficial, President Lula signed Provisional Measure 1,394. It prohibits operating, offering, intermediating and advertising fixed-odds betting anywhere in Brazil. It took effect on publication.

The ban covers bets on real sporting events and on online games whose result comes from a random number generator, which is the product the market calls online casino (art. 1 §1). Other lottery products authorised by law are not touched (art. 1 §2).

Operators face two deadlines, and most coverage merges them. Article 7 requires sites and apps to be taken offline ten days after publication. Article 4 ends the authorisations themselves thirty days after publication. Between the two, the operator has no business left to run but still holds the authorisation, and uses that window to return player money.

Article 4’s sole paragraph settles the money question. The extinction is on public-interest grounds and gives no right to a refund, in whole or in part, of the fee paid under article 12 of Law 14.790, and no right to compensation. That fee was BRL 30 million per authorisation. Agência Brasil counts 85 authorisations paid, BRL 2.55 billion in all. The SPA’s own list on 1 July 2026 named 87 authorised operators; the two figures come from different dates and sources.

The timetable

Date	What happens	MP 1,394
25 September 2026	Measure published and in force; no new deposits; no new authorisations; pending applications fall away	arts 6, 7 §1, 30
23:59, 5 October	Last moment for players to withdraw on their own, per the government calendar; ads and sponsorship must be gone	arts 7, 16 §2
6 October	Sites and apps offline, including app-store listings; open bets void and refunded in full	art. 7
7–8 October	Operators send banks and the SPA each player’s CPF, balance and source account	art. 8
9–14 October	Banks refund to the player’s own account, within seven days of receiving the list	art. 9
From 14 October	Unrefundable balances move to a Caixa Econômica Federal account under Ministry of Finance supervision	art. 9 §3
25 October	Every Law 14.790 authorisation, and every state and Federal District one, is extinguished	arts 2 §1, 4

The calendar dates are the government’s, published by Agência Senado on the day of the announcement. The measure itself counts in days from publication.

What each party has to do

Operators

Bets settled before switch-off must be paid. Bets still open are void, and the stake comes back without deductions (art. 7 §§2–3). Within two days of going offline the operator must fund the refunds, send each bank that holds its transactional accounts a list by CPF of what is owed and where the money came from, and send the same list to the SPA with proof that the money is there (art. 8). The refund money stays segregated and cannot be moved for any other purpose. Missing any of this costs BRL 200,000 a day until it is fixed.

Article 13 gives operators a reason to comply on time. Sanction proceedings under Law 14.790 not finally decided on 25 September are suspended, and they are archived for good if the operator meets every transition obligation in time.

Banks and payment institutions

They refund within seven days of receiving the list, to the account the money came from if it is still active and in the player’s name, or to another account the player holds (art. 9). They report to the SPA what was paid and what could not be. Beyond the wind-down, no financial institution, payment institution or participant in a payment arrangement, instant payments included, may process transactions for fixed-odds betting (art. 14). The Central Bank is to set up a mechanism to reject such transfers and return the money within its real-time settlement system, which is Pix (art. 15).

Affiliates, media and sponsored clubs

Advertising, marketing and sponsorship of fixed-odds betting are banned in every medium, physical or digital, whatever the format or the payment model (art. 16). Existing material and sponsorship signs have to come down within ten days of publication. The one exception is content published before 25 September in which the betting advertising is incidental to the content itself (art. 17). Breaches count as abusive advertising under the Consumer Protection Code, so consumer-protection bodies can impose counter-advertising and suspend the content as an interim measure (art. 18).

Platforms and app stores

Internet application providers carry a duty of care to stop betting promotion from circulating on their services, including content posted by third parties, and are liable if they cannot show adequate measures (art. 19). App stores and operating-system providers must keep banned products off their stores (art. 21). The fine reaches 10% of the economic group’s Brazilian turnover in its last financial year, or BRL 10 to BRL 1,000 per registered user where there is no turnover, capped at BRL 50 million per infraction (art. 22). Suspension and prohibition of the provider’s activities are kept for repeat offences.

Suppliers

The measure does not name B2B suppliers. It does prohibit “intermediação” without defining it, and after switch-off every licensed customer in Brazil is shut. Supplying a Brazil-facing operator after that date is supplying a prohibited activity.

What survives the licence

Ending the authorisation does not end the operator’s liabilities for the period it held one. Regulatory, tax and financial obligations stay, as do anti-money-laundering, responsible-gambling and sports-integrity duties (art. 10). Data, documents and records on players, bets, payments and prizes must be kept accessible to the authorities for at least five years. Reporting to the SPA through Sigap continues for everything up to the day betting stopped (art. 11).

The measure revokes most of Law 14.790 (articles 1 to 21, 22 to 24, 25 to 40, 43 to 48 and 54), but article 29’s sole paragraph keeps that law applying to what happened while the authorisations were in force.

Why an offshore licence is not a way back in

Article 1 applies to agents based abroad that offer fixed-odds betting to a person in Brazil. The Ministries of Finance and Justice can order sites blocked or redirected: Anatel passes the orders to internet providers, and CGI.br handles orders on names under .br (art. 23). The payment ban in article 14 reaches every participant in a payment arrangement, including those the Central Bank does not authorise.

Article 28 adds a sharper tool to Law 14.790. Money held in accounts blocked because they belong to an irregular operator can now be declared forfeited to the Union in an administrative proceeding, without a prior court case, and goes to the National Public Security Fund. A Curaçao or Anjouan licence does nothing about any of this. Before the ban an offshore operator serving Brazil was unlicensed; after it, the operator is running a prohibited activity against a state that has just shut down its own licensees.

How long the measure lasts

A provisional measure has the force of law from publication but must be converted by Congress. Under article 62 of the Constitution it lasts 60 days, extendable once by another 60, and the clock stops during Congress’s recess. If it lapses or is rejected, it loses effect from the start, and it cannot be reissued in the same legislative session.

Two things make a reversal less useful to operators than it sounds. The authorisations end on day thirty, long before a vote is due. And article 62 §11 keeps relations formed while the measure was in force governed by it, unless Congress passes a legislative decree within 60 days of a lapse or rejection. Brazil has been here before: Provisional Measure 1,303, which would have lifted the gaming tax from 12% to 18%, was withdrawn by the Chamber on 8 October 2025 and lapsed. Nobody should plan on the same outcome for a measure the government presented as a public-health decision.

The crimes that are only proposed

The government announced a bill alongside the measure that would create specific crimes. It is a bill, not law. As Agência Brasil reported the proposal:

Proposed crime	Proposed prison term
Operating fixed-odds betting	4 to 6 years
Promoting betting or recruiting bettors	2 to 4 years
Using data for betting	2 to 4 years
Facilitating the financial side	2 to 4 years
Providing the internet application	2 to 4 years

Until Congress passes it, the sanctions are the administrative ones in the measure and in the Consumer Protection Code.

The government’s case

The government tied the measure to public health and household debt. It cited a rise of about 140% in gambling-related care in the public health system between 2018 and 2025, and an IEPS estimate of BRL 38.8 billion a year in social cost, BRL 30.6 billion of it in health. Those are the government’s figures; we have not checked them against the underlying studies.

Where operators can go instead

No licence anywhere lets an operator keep serving Brazil. The question for a Brazil team is where the same product and the same Portuguese- or Spanish-speaking operations can be licensed next. In Latin America the list is short.

Market	Can a new operator get in?	Main charge	What it takes
Colombia	Yes, by concession contract with Coljuegos	15% of gross gaming revenue, plus a 16% consumption tax for 2026 only	Colombian company, a site on .CO, guarantees including a prize guarantee of at least COP 615,000,000
Peru	Yes, by MINCETUR authorisation	12% of net income (11.76% effective), plus 1% of every bet	Peruvian company or branch; a guarantee of the greater of 3% of net income or 600 UIT, S/ 3,300,000 in 2026
Mexico	Only through an existing permit holder	50% IEPS since 1 January 2026	Online play is an extension of a land-based permit; new permits are rarely granted
Argentina	Not in the two largest markets	2.5–15% federal tax on deposits, plus provincial charges	Buenos Aires City and Province are both closed to new applicants; entry is an acquisition
Chile	No	None, because no licence exists	The bill that would create one has been before Congress since March 2022

Colombia is the closest thing to what Brazil offered: one national regulator, a national market and no fixed licence fee, so the entry cost is the tax rather than a BRL 30 million ticket. Its tax has changed four times since February 2025. Peru’s two-part tax suits a book with healthy margins. The 1% on every stake is charged whatever the result, so it bites hardest on low-margin sports betting.

Panama is not on the list. Its licence under Resolution 65/2002 is for operations facing players outside Panama, and it does not open Brazil or any other regulated market. The same goes for Curaçao and Anjouan.

For how each Latin American licence ranks on cost, tax and access, see the best gambling licence for Latin America in 2026.

What changes on this site

The Brazil profile and our two Brazil guides describe the licensing regime as it stood before 25 September 2026. We have marked Brazil as prohibited in the jurisdiction comparison, taken it out of the fee table and the cost calculator, and dropped it as a pick for sports betting and for Latin America. The profile stays up as a record of the regime and its obligations, which still apply to the licensed period.