Brazil's Attorney General's Office asks the Supreme Court to declare fixed-odds betting laws unconstitutional.
The Attorney General's Office (AGU) filed a statement with the Supreme Federal Court (STF) this Friday (October 2nd) requesting that the Court declare unconstitutional the normative core of Laws 13.756/2018 and 14.790/2023, which created and regulated fixed-odds betting in Brazil. The document was electronically signed at 4:22 PM by the Attorney General of the Union, Jorge Messias, in response to a ruling by Minister Luiz Fux, rapporteur of Direct Action of Unconstitutionality (ADI) 7749, proposed by the Attorney General's Office.
This position represents a shift from the AGU's previous stance. In ADI 7721, the agency had considered the norm "still constitutional, subject to a process of progressive unconstitutionality." Now, after monitoring carried out since 2024, the agency argues that the legislative framework presents "insufficient protection" and does not establish effective mechanisms to contain harm to public health, the minimum subsistence level, family unity, and the economic order.
Impacts on the health and finances of families.
The statement presents a series of data to support the argument that the social and economic effects of gambling go beyond what current laws are capable of controlling. Services provided to the Brazilian public health system (SUS) under codes F63.0 (pathological gambling) and Z72.6 (gambling addiction) increased by 140% between January 2018 and December 2025. The Ministry of Health's telehealth service registered 100 calls related to the topic. A study by the Institute for Health Policy Studies, published in December 2025, estimated the annual social costs associated with the impacts of gambling on health at R$ 30,6 billion.
In financial terms, the numbers are equally significant. According to the 2026 Fiscal Bulletin of Brazilian States, the net outflow of resources from family budgets in 2025 reached R$ 62,5 billion. Between January 2023 and March 2026, approximately 268 families fell into severe default, with an estimated loss of R$ 143 billion for the retail sector. Brazilian household debt reached 49,9% in February 2026, the highest level in the historical series that began in 2005. The impact on GDP was estimated between R$ 120 billion and R$ 141 billion in 2025, equivalent to 0,9% to 1,1% of the country's economic activity.
Black market and money laundering
The Attorney General's Office (AGU) also points to the criminal dimension of the problem. Gangs have used clandestine platforms to move around R$ 7 billion since 2021. The illegal share of the betting market is estimated to be between 41% and 51% of the total. Operation Primma Migratio, conducted by the Federal Police in April 2024, investigated the movement of over R$ 300 million by the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) in a money laundering scheme via betting.
According to the Attorney General's Office (AGU), this asymmetry between the regulated and clandestine markets is, in itself, a structural problem; licensed operators bear compliance costs and taxes that illegal competitors simply ignore.
The legal arguments
The agency points out four specific flaws in the normative design of the challenged laws. First, existing protective measures, such as the self-exclusion mechanism, depend on the gambler's self-determination, making them ineffective for those who have already lost control over their behavior. Second, the legislation did not impose objective limits on bet value, session time, or frequency, delegating the protective structure to sub-legal acts without sufficient legal weight. Third, so-called "crash games" represent six of the ten most popular games and combine brevity and randomness in a way that maximizes engagement and psychological harm. Fourth, the regulated market competes at a disadvantage with a significant clandestine segment.
Based on these grounds, the Attorney General's Office (AGU) requests a declaration of unconstitutionality of articles 29 to 35 of Law 13.756/2018 and articles 1 to 21, 22 to 24, 25 to 40, 43 to 48 and 54 of Law 14.790/2023. ADI 7749 remains under the jurisdiction of Justice Luiz Fux, and the AGU's position now represents the highest echelon of federal public advocacy aligning itself with the argument of unconstitutionality that the Attorney General's Office itself upholds in the action.
