The Betting Decree: The Ban Is Defensible, Legal Uncertainty Is the Problem

On September 25, 2026, the federal government issued a provisional measure ending sports betting and online gaming (the so-called bets) in Brazil for good. The subject divides opinion, but the point that should worry anyone doing business in the country is not the ban itself: it is the precedent of legal uncertainty it leaves behind.

What the measure establishes, and why the ban itself makes sense

The provisional measure signed on September 25 orders a complete end to the operation, offering, intermediation, and advertising of sports betting and online games in the country, covering both physical and virtual environments and revoking authorizations already granted. The timetable is tight: new deposits were banned from publication, voluntary withdrawals can be made until October 5, platforms close on October 6, and users’ money must be returned by banks between October 9 and 14.

The government’s justification is public health: SUS appointments linked to gambling disorders grew 140% between 2018 and 2025, and the sector’s social cost was estimated at R$ 38.8 billion a year. Taken on its own, the concern is legitimate, and the betting industry does carry social risks well documented in many countries. Ending or sharply restricting that activity is a public-policy choice a government can make.

The real problem: legal uncertainty for those who followed the law

What separates a legitimate public policy from a dangerous precedent is how it treats those who already followed the previous rules. And here the betting measure raises a serious problem: 85 companies paid R$ 30 million each, a total of R$ 2.55 billion, for five-year licenses granted by the federal government itself after a law debated and approved two and a half years earlier. Those companies complied with the legislation, paid the concession fee, invested in operations, compliance, and regulated advertising, and now have the activity shut down by provisional measure, with no compensation for lost profits or for investments already made.

Carlos Lima, president of the Brazilian Institute for Responsible Gaming, summed up the problem: the measure is a “serious signal of legal uncertainty” for investors who trusted rules established by Brazil itself. Legal scholars quoted in the press took the same line, questioning whether a provisional measure — an instrument designed for urgency and relevance, not for repealing a law debated in Congress — is the constitutionally proper vehicle for this change. The affected companies have already said they will go to court seeking reimbursement of the concession fees paid and of the investments made in the country.

The lesson for anyone protecting wealth: diversify away from that uncertainty

Episodes like this do not stay confined to the sector directly affected. Any investor, Brazilian or foreign, reads them as a signal of how the country treats rules it created itself: if a five-year license, paid in full and on time, can be ended by provisional measure with no compensation, the same risk reasoning applies, to a greater or lesser degree, to any regulated sector in Brazil.

That is exactly where international diversification stops being only a return strategy and becomes institutional protection. The United States offers, for anyone who structures things correctly, a stable regulatory environment, with long-term rules and legal predictability recognized globally for property, contracts, and investment. Putting part of one’s wealth in dollars is not abandoning Brazil: it is building a store of value protected from abrupt regulatory changes, in a currency and a legal system with a history of stability. EA Financial Advisory exists exactly for that: to structure the transition with governance, tax efficiency, and long-term planning, so the investor can take wealth to the United States in a safe, organized, and sustainable way.