Brazil: Lula Re-Elected as Congress Considers Fixed-Odds Betting Ban

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was re-elected after the presidential runoff on 25 October 2026, according to Agência Senado's report of the completed count. The report gives Lula 51.78% of valid votes and approximately 64.2 million votes, against 48.22% and approximately 59.8 million votes for Senator Flávio Bolsonaro. The earlier 51.74% and 48.26% figures were provisional figures at 97.69% of the count and should not be presented as the final result.

The election result is separate from the future of Medida Provisória (MP) 1.394/2026, a provisional measure published on 25 September 2026 that prohibits the exploitation, offering, intermediation and advertising of fixed-odds betting throughout Brazil. The measure remains listed as awaiting installation of its joint committee on the National Congress proceedings page checked for this article. Its legislative outcome has not been decided in the records cited here.

What the measure says

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The full text published by the Presidency states that the prohibition covers fixed-odds betting offered physically or online, including sports-event bets and online games, and applies to state and Federal District authorisations as well as federal authorisations. It also bars new authorisations from the publication date.

The measure set two transition deadlines:

• 5 October 2026: ten days after publication, operators were required to make websites and internet applications offering fixed-odds bets unavailable.
• 25 October 2026: existing concessions, permissions and authorisations were due to expire after the 30-day period specified in the measure.

These are statutory deadlines. The sources cited here do not independently establish whether every operator complied, whether any court order affected an individual operator, or what enforcement action was taken against specific businesses. The measure also provides for the return of customer balances and prizes, with duties for operators and financial/payment institutions during the transition.

What Congress records

The National Congress proceedings page for MPV 1.394/2026 lists the measure as awaiting installation of its joint committee. The page states a deliberation period of 25 September to 23 November 2026 and an urgency regime beginning on 9 November. The page records 99 amendments filed; the legislative history also records the withdrawal of five amendments. These are procedural facts, not evidence of how Congress will ultimately vote.

Revenue estimates

The Senate legislative summary attributes estimates of reduced federal revenue to the executive branch. Because the figures should be checked against the underlying summary document before being repeated in a financial forecast, this article does not reproduce those amounts. They should be described as government estimates rather than independently verified outcomes if included in a later update.

What remains unknown

• Whether every betting site and app complied with the 5 October deadline.
• Whether any operator has obtained a court order or other individual relief. No such order is asserted here without a primary docket record.
• How the joint committee will be installed and whether Congress will approve, amend or reject the measure.
• Any policy position of the incoming administration specifically on MP 1.394/2026. No such position is asserted in this article.

Timeline

• 25 September 2026: MP 1.394/2026 is published in an extra edition of the Diário Oficial da União.
• 5 October 2026: statutory deadline for making betting websites and apps unavailable.
• 14 October 2026: the Congress proceedings page records legislative actions concerning withdrawals of amendments.
• 25 October 2026: the statutory 30-day authorisation-expiry date; the presidential runoff is completed and Lula is declared re-elected.
• 9 November 2026: scheduled start of the urgency regime listed on the Congress page.
• 23 November 2026: end of the deliberation window listed on the Congress page.

Bottom line

Two developments should be kept distinct: Lula's re-election, reported after the completed vote count, and MP 1.394/2026, which imposes a nationwide prohibition on fixed-odds betting while Congress considers the measure. The law's transition dates have passed, but the cited records do not establish the compliance status of every operator or predict the measure's final legislative fate.