Brazil’s Blask Index, a real-time measure of iGaming player search demand, fell 20.1% week-on-week after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed Medida Provisória 1.394 on Friday, September 25, banning fixed-odds sports betting and online games nationwide. The decline reflects the market pricing in an actual shutdown rather than merely reacting to the news, according to Blask’s own weekly market digest.
The decree bans the exploitation, offer, intermediation, and advertising of fixed-odds sports bets and online games across both physical and virtual channels, including offshore platforms serving Brazilian users. Other legal lottery types remain outside the measure’s scope.
New deposits stopped the day the decree was published. Withdrawals stay open until 23:59 on October 5, and betting sites and apps must go offline from October 6. Alongside the ban, the government sent Congress a separate bill criminalizing five betting-related offenses, with proposed sentences of two to six years.
A provisional measure, not settled law
MP 1.394 took effect immediately on signing, but as a provisional measure it must be ratified by Brazil’s Congress within 120 days to become permanent. That timeline gives operators and suppliers a defined window in which the ban’s status remains unresolved, and Congress can approve, amend, or let the measure lapse.
A faster-moving challenge arrived three days later. On September 28, betting-industry associations filed suit with Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court seeking to suspend the measure, arguing the shutdown causes irreversible harm to licensed operators. The dual-track contest – congressional ratification alongside a live court filing – means the ban’s permanence is far from guaranteed even as it takes practical effect on the ground.
The reversal lands on a market Brazil only regulated two years ago. According to Rio Times, licensed operators began trading under the country’s federal licensing regime in January 2025, and the sector had grown to roughly 85 licensed companies serving 25.2 million bettors before the decree. A full-scale prohibition attempt this soon after licensing, contested in court within days of signing, marks a sharp reversal for one of Latin America’s largest regulated markets.
Index volatility bookends the announcement
The Blask Index had spiked 41.45% day-over-day on September 26, the day the ban made headlines, before the subsequent weekly reading turned negative as the market absorbed the operational reality of the shutdown timeline. Blask’s digest noted that offshore operators rushed to fill the resulting gap even as the domestic index fell.
Operators with Brazilian exposure are now assessing the fallout in real time; customer withdrawals and business disruption following the ban are already shaping how licensed brands communicate with shareholders. The decree also arrives alongside separate legislative moves covering efforts to remove online casino games and fixed-odds betting from Brazil’s legal market and earlier restrictions on betting promotions, bonuses and sponsorships, underscoring a broader tightening of Brazil’s regulatory posture toward the sector well before this week’s decree.
Renata Kovacs has spent the better part of a decade following the regulatory shifts and licensing battles that define how gambling markets open, close, and evolve across Europe and beyond. She came up through the legal and compliance side of the industry before shifting her focus to journalism and analysis, giving her a perspective that sits closer to the operator room than the press box. Her coverage tends to cut through the noise and get straight to what a regulatory change actually means for the businesses and players involved.