Brazil’s Federal Government has formally appealed a Supreme Court ruling that partially lifted restrictions on betting accounts linked to beneficiaries of social assistance programs, arguing that compliance with the decision is technically unfeasible.
The appeal was filed by the Attorney General's Office (AGU), the Federal Government’s legal office, which represents the Union before the courts.
The challenge targets a decision issued by Luiz Fux, a justice of Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF), who oversees the case.
Fux had previously ruled, with the help of Brazil’s regulator, SPA, that individuals receiving social benefits should not be allowed to gamble.
As a result, regulators adopted a system that blocked betting account registrations using the CPF numbers of beneficiaries.
Following legal challenges from industry groups, however, the justice later suspended part of that restriction, allowing existing betting accounts to remain open while maintaining a ban on new registrations.
Crucially, the ruling limited the prohibition to funds originating specifically from social programs.
In its appeal, the AGU argues that this distinction cannot be applied in practice. According to the Government, there is no technical or technological mechanism capable of identifying whether money used for betting comes from welfare payments or from other sources of income once funds enter a personal bank account.
The Government further argues that the current CPF-based blocking system is the only effective regulatory tool available and has already been validated by Brazil’s federal audit court, the Tribunal de Contas da União (TCU), as a robust interim solution.
CPF is Brazil’s individual taxpayer registry.
Additional obstacles cited include system limitations that prevent distinguishing new registrations from pre-existing accounts and legal barriers under Brazil’s data protection law, which restrict the sharing of sensitive beneficiary information with private betting operators.
While the Supreme Court had initially called for a conciliation hearing to address the dispute, that meeting was later postponed.
All other determinations in the case remain in force, including the suspension of mandatory account closures and the continued ban on new registrations by welfare beneficiaries.
A separate study warned that Brazil’s tax reform could raise the betting sector’s total tax burden to 42% by 2033, intensifying regulatory and operational pressure on operators
