Brazil's Supreme Court admits dozens of amici curiae briefs in lawsuits against the Betting Law.
Minister Luiz Fux, of the Supreme Federal Court (STF), signed two orders on Thursday (27) that should reshape the pace of the trial on the constitutionality of the regulatory framework for fixed-odds betting, released this Friday (28). In the two texts, the rapporteur decides on the requests to participate as amicus curiae in Direct Actions of Unconstitutionality 7721 and 7723 — which are being processed jointly — and in ADI 7749, filed by the Attorney General's Office (PGR), in addition to announcing that the three actions will be judged together as soon as the instruction of the PGR's action is completed.
What is on trial
ADIs 7721 and 7723, filed respectively by the National Confederation of Commerce of Goods, Services and Tourism (CNC) and the Solidarity party, challenge Law No. 14.790/2023 on the grounds that the regulation of fixed-odds betting has contributed to increased indebtedness among Brazilian families and to negative impacts on the economic order.
Meanwhile, ADI 7749, authored by the Attorney General's Office (PGR), goes further: it requests that the entire set of regulations governing fixed-odds betting—Law 14.790/2023, the remaining provisions of Law 13.756/2018, and the ordinances of the Secretariat of Prizes and Bets of the Ministry of Finance (SPA/MF)—be declared unconstitutional. Among the PGR's main arguments are: the claim that lottery operation is a public service and should have been granted through concession or permission preceded by bidding, and not by simple authorization; the alleged unconstitutional transfer of power to the Executive Branch to regulate restrictions on the activity, which would render the SPA/MF ordinances unconstitutional by extension; insufficient protection of fundamental rights—health, human dignity, children and adolescents, people with disabilities, and the elderly—given the ease of access to gambling through apps; and the inadequacy of awareness mechanisms regarding gambling addiction. The Attorney General's Office (PGR) cites several grounds for the constitutionality of the law regarding the diversion of funds from social programs, citing a Central Bank survey indicating that approximately 5 million beneficiaries of the Bolsa Família program transferred around R$ 3 billion to betting sites via Pix in August 2024 alone; risks to public safety, based on a survey by Enccla (National Strategy for Combating Corruption and Money Laundering) on the sector's vulnerabilities to money laundering and the manipulation of sports results; and a formal flaw in the origin of Law 13.756/2018, whose provisions on fixed-odds betting were allegedly inserted by a parliamentary amendment unrelated to the purpose of the provisional measure that gave rise to it. Finally, the PGR requests that, with the declaration of unconstitutionality, the activity be reinstated as a criminal offense until new legislation is enacted—the most radical request among the actions under the rapporteurship of Justice Fux.
The Federal Senate has already submitted a statement arguing for the complete dismissal of ADI 7749, maintaining that the creation of the modality through parliamentary amendment was legitimate, that Law 14.790/2023 resulted from a comprehensive legislative process with public consultation, and that the response to the proliferation of illegal betting sites should indeed come through regulation, not prohibition.
Accelerated procedure and joint trial
The most relevant piece of information for the market, from a procedural standpoint, is in the ruling on ADI 7749: Fux decided to adopt the procedure of Article 12 of Law 9.868/1999, which allows the rapporteur, given the relevance of the matter, to submit the action directly to a judgment on the merits by the Plenary, without prior analysis of the precautionary request. In practice, this means that the Attorney General's Office will not obtain an isolated preliminary injunction suspending the legislation; the process will proceed directly to a final and definitive decision on the entire validity of the regulatory framework for betting.
To facilitate this procedure, the minister ordered a 10-day period for the Presidency of the Republic, the National Congress, and the Ministry of Finance—the latter due to the SPA/MF ordinances challenged by extension—to provide definitive information. Following this, the Attorney General's Office and the Prosecutor General's Office will each have a successive 5-day period to review the information.
Fux also confirmed, at the end of his ruling in ADI 7749, that ADIs 7721 and 7723 — which are already being processed jointly under his responsibility — will be judged together with the PGR's action, as soon as the instruction of this process is concluded. In other words: the STF should issue a single decision on the fate of the entire legal framework for fixed-odds betting in Brazil, and not fragmented decisions on each action individually.
The amici curiae admitted
In both rulings, Fux also addressed requests for admission as amicus curiae, based on Article 7, §2, of Law 9.868/1999, Article 138 of the CPC, and Article 21, XVIII, of the Internal Regulations of the STF. The minister cited a work of his own authorship to reaffirm that the amicus curiae institution democratizes the Court's decision-making process, but also considered, based on a precedent from Minister Alexandre de Moraes (ADI 6553), that granting all requests could compromise procedural efficiency—hence the need for selection.
In ADIs 7721 and 7723 , from a universe of approximately 30 requests, the following were admitted: ABRASEL/NACIONAL, IBJR (Brazilian Institute of Responsible Gaming), ANJL (National Association of Games and Lotteries), CNS (National Confederation of Services), DPERJ, ASSOPERLOT/MG, ABERT, DPU (Federal Public Defender's Office), ABRACRIM, ABRASF, Fluminense Football Club, Public Prosecutor's Office of Minas Gerais, SBDD (Brazilian Association of Sports Law), the Economic Regulation Laboratory of UERJ, LOTERJ, OPERA LEGAL (National Association of State Operators of Games and Lotteries), CNI/SESI, the SAFs of Botafogo and Cruzeiro, IDV (Institute for Retail Development), Instituto Alana, ID Global, LEDTI of UFRJ, Educafro in conjunction with the National Association of The requests from Child and Adolescent Defense Centers, the State of Maranhão, ABLE (Brazilian Association for Economic Freedom), BRASILCON, and the OTA Institute were denied. The requests from Fábio de Oliveira Ribeiro (individual), FIEP, FACIAP, and the Municipality of Miguel Pereira were also rejected.
In ADI 7749 , the following were admitted: the PDT party, ABRASF, IBJR, the State of Paraná in conjunction with LOTTOPAR, CNS, AIGAMING (International Gaming Association), DPU, Instituto Alana, ICCON-BRASIL (Institute for Consumer Education), and ABERT. The request from Instituto Moderação Ltda. was denied.
It is noteworthy that a large number of entities directly linked to the regulated sector — IBJR, ANJL, ABERT, CNS, ABRASF, OPERA LEGAL, LOTERJ, CNI/SESI, IDV, ABLE, AIGAMING, as well as football clubs such as Fluminense, Botafogo and Cruzeiro, which depend on sponsorship from the sector — were admitted in at least one of the lawsuits, alongside consumer and children's advocacy organizations such as Instituto Alana, BRASILCON, Educafro/ANCED and ICCON-BRASIL, and federative entities with an interest in their own lotteries, such as Maranhão and Paraná/LOTTOPAR.
What this means for the market
For licensed operators, the rulings offer a two-layered interpretation. On the one hand, the broad admission of regulated sector entities as amici curiae—IBJR, ANJL, ABERT, CNS, ABRASF, OPERA LEGAL, among others—guarantees the market an institutional space for technical input directly in the process that will decide the future of the activity, which tends to enrich the debate in the Plenary with data and arguments from the sector. On the other hand, the adoption of the procedure of Article 12 in ADI 7749 means that this action—the most radical, as it requests the return of the activity to the status of a criminal offense—will not go through an isolated precautionary stage: it will proceed directly to a judgment on the merits, together with ADIs 7721 and 7723, after the information and statements phase of the AGU and the PGR.
In practice, the market should not expect an imminent decision—the procedure still provides for deadlines of 10 and 5 days only for the information phase, before any inclusion on the agenda—but the outcome, when it comes, will be a single, comprehensive decision on the validity of all of Law 14.790/2023, Law 13.756/2018, and the SPA/MF regulations, and no longer piecemeal decisions on each action individually. It is this joint judgment, and no longer the debates scattered across three separate processes, that operators, investors, and business partners in the sports betting and online gaming sector should begin to closely monitor.
