ABERT asks the Supreme Court for immediate suspension of Rio Grande do Sul state law restricting betting advertising.
The Brazilian Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters (ABERT) asked the Supreme Federal Court, this Tuesday (August 25), to immediately suspend Law No. 16.508/2026, from Rio Grande do Sul, which restricts the advertising of sports betting platforms in the state. The request for a precautionary measure was addressed to the reporting minister Cármen Lúcia and coincided with the day the law came into effect, after the end of a 120-day vacatio legis.
The law from Rio Grande do Sul had been published on April 27, 2026. ABERT joined the action as amicus curiae in ADI No. 7.971 and, now with the validity of the rule confirmed, reiterated the urgency of the precautionary request to prevent obligations, prohibitions and sanctions from being applied to media outlets and betting operators before a final judgment in the STF (Supreme Federal Court).
Federal jurisdiction at the center of the debate
The core of the association's argument is of a constitutional nature. The entity maintains that Rio Grande do Sul encroached upon the exclusive powers of the Union when enacting the law, pointing to five flaws of organic unconstitutionality.
The first issue concerns the regulation of lotteries, a matter of exclusive federal jurisdiction as stipulated in Article 22, XX, of the Constitution, whose unitary regime, according to ABERT, does not allow for differentiated state treatment. The second involves commercial advertising; the Constitution reserves the restriction of advertising to federal law, and the Supreme Federal Court has already invalidated state regulations on the subject in precedents such as ADIs No. 2.815, No. 5.432, and No. 5.424. The restriction on advertising hours for bets between 6 am and 21 pm, provided for in Article 6 of the Rio Grande do Sul state law, is also questioned for interfering with telecommunications and broadcasting, which are also under federal jurisdiction. Furthermore, the regulation would create autonomous hypotheses of civil liability, a matter reserved for federal law, and would institute an obligation of counter-advertising; a sanction that the Consumer Protection Code and Law No. 9.294/1996 reserve to the federal sphere.
The entity also points out two material flaws: the weakening of the liability regime for providers established by Supreme Court Ruling No. 987, and the creation of a market reserve by prohibiting advertising at sporting events for operators that are not official sponsors, which would violate the principles of free enterprise and free competition.
The risk of 27 different regimes
For ABERT, the most immediate damage falls on its members. The Rio Grande do Sul state law establishes joint liability for media outlets for any infractions (Article 9, II) and sanctions conduct that is not even subject to sanctions under federal law, with penalties ranging from fines to the obligation to broadcast counter-advertising, as per Article 11 of the law. In practice, national broadcasters would have to segment their programming to separate what airs in Rio Grande do Sul from the rest of the country.
The most worrying scenario, according to the entity, is the precedent-setting effect. If the Rio Grande do Sul law comes into effect without judicial suspension, other states could enact their own regulations on fixed-odds betting advertising, resulting in up to 27 simultaneous state and district regimes, each imposing distinct rules on an activity that is already widely regulated at the federal level. Both the Attorney General's Office and the Prosecutor General's Office have expressed their support for the precautionary measure; the Prosecutor General's Office warned that the "multiplication of distinct local regimes would produce significant legal uncertainty, regulatory asymmetries, and difficulties in oversight, without providing sufficient national protection for the constitutional assets affected by the activity."
ABERT counters the argument that the suspension would create a regulatory vacuum. The entity emphasizes that Law No. 14.790/2023 and the regulatory acts of the Secretariat of Prizes and Bets of the Ministry of Finance remain fully in force and govern the operation and advertising of fixed-odds betting throughout the national territory. Suspending the state law, therefore, would preserve the federal regulatory status quo until the Supreme Federal Court (STF) rules on the merits of the Direct Action of Unconstitutionality (ADI).
The petition was signed by lawyers Gustavo Binenbojm, André Cyrino, Alice Voronoff, and Rafael LF Koatz, all registered with the OAB/DF (Brazilian Bar Association, Federal District chapter). As of the publication of this report, Minister Cármen Lúcia had not yet made a decision on the precautionary request.
Petition from the Brazilian Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters (ABERT)
