Stake loses provisional permission to operate in Brazil

Stake's brief run as the sole operator permitted to trade in Brazil has ended after a Federal Court appeal overturned the injunction that allowed it, according to SBC News.

The operator had been granted provisional permission last week to remain operational until 25 October, a decision handed down by Judge Rodrigues dos Santos of the 9th Federal Civil Court of São Paulo.

That ruling made Stake the only licensed operator still trading in the country following President Lula's decree banning all forms of gambling, which took effect on 25 September.

Judge Di Salvo of the Federal Regional Court, which oversees the lower court that issued the original order, has now suspended the injunction.

The decision stated that allowing a single company to keep operating while others complied with the restrictions imposed by the public authorities created a regulatory imbalance, noting that this showed "regulatory asymmetry capable of affecting the execution of the public policy implemented, characterising risk to the administrative order."

SBC News reports that the reversal likely followed a formal complaint to the Federal Court, with the Attorney General's Office and the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office named as the probable parties behind the challenge, given both bodies have backed the presidential decree.

The licensed gambling sector has pushed back against the ban since it was introduced, pointing to the scale of its investment in compliance since Brazil opened its regulated market in 2024.

Many operators in the country hold five-year licences issued by the Secretariat of Prizes and Bets, the national regulator known as the SPA.

The National Association of Games and Lotteries and the Brazilian Institute of Responsible Gambling, the two largest trade bodies representing licensed operators, have argued that the decree unpicks a legislative framework that Lula himself signed into law two years earlier, and that it undermines the multi-year licences and market access that framework guaranteed.

Stake's success in securing a temporary carve-out had raised the prospect that other licensed operators might pursue similar appeals against the ban, though SBC News notes that any such attempt now faces a steeper path given the outcome of Stake's own case.

Responsibility for determining whether the prohibition remains in place ultimately rests with Brazil's National Congress and the Supreme Court, both of which have reserved the right to take up the matter once the current presidential election cycle concludes on 25 October.