Key Takeaways
- A São Paulo federal judge let Stake Brazil keep operating until Oct. 25, when the ban ends all licenses.
- Stake must keep withdrawals open and cannot run promotions, bonuses, or drives to grow its user base.
- Brazil’s Attorney General’s Office plans to appeal, and the Supreme Court has yet to rule on the ban itself.
One Site Back on as the Rest Stay Dark
Stake’s Brazilian betting site, stake.bet.br, came back online on Thursday, according to the company. That was two days after Brazil’s ban on fixed-odds betting forced licensed operators offline. Judge Cristiane Farias Rodrigues dos Santos of São Paulo’s 9th Federal Civil Court partly granted an injunction on Oct. 8, barring authorities from treating Stake’s license as terminated or blocking its domain before Oct. 25.
The judge’s reasoning turned on two dates in Provisional Measure 1,394, which President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed on Sept. 25. The measure ordered platforms offline within 10 days but ends existing authorizations only after 30 days, on Oct. 25. That 30-day window, she found, showed a transition period was intended, so the government could not cut Stake off early. The court rejected Stake’s main request to keep operating until its license expires at the end of 2029 and did not rule on whether the ban is constitutional.
The reprieve comes with 12 conditions. Stake must keep its identity checks, age verification, anti-money-laundering, and responsible gambling controls running. It may not accept bets made with welfare program money, or launch promotions, bonuses, or other efforts to grow its user base. It must also keep withdrawals open and set aside enough money to pay player balances.
Stake Brazil welcomed the injunction as a first for a licensed operator.
“To our knowledge, we are the first licensed operator to get a decision of this kind,” the company said. “The decision represents an important signal for Stake Brazil and for all those who operate under state authorization and supervision.”
According to the ruling’s summary of its filing, Stake Brazil paid a 30 million reais (about $6 million) license fee, put in 87.8 million reais (about $17.5 million) of share capital, and invested around 128.2 million reais (about $25.6 million) in the country. It has 41 employees and held 508,084 player wallets on Sept. 23, 224,566 of them with money in them.
The ruling covers Stake alone. The rest of Brazil’s 85 license holders remain offline after the ban took effect on Oct. 6, and would need decisions of their own. The relief may not last the full 17 days either. It runs until Oct. 25 or a further court order, whichever comes first. Brazil’s Attorney General’s Office (AGU) plans to appeal to the Federal Regional Court of the 3rd Region, according to Lei em Campo, and if that court suspends the injunction, Stake goes dark again before Oct. 25.
The wider fight is still with Supreme Court Justice Luiz Fux, who is handling challenges to the measure filed by betting trade groups and a national mayors’ association. On Oct. 2, Fux gave the government 72 hours to respond. The AGU defended the ban in full and asked the court to hear from the Prosecutor General and consider a new public hearing before deciding.
Congress only has to vote on the measure by Nov. 23. Lula signed the ban nine days before the Oct. 4 first round presidential election, and the runoff is on Oct. 25—the same day Stake’s reprieve runs out.
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