Brazil's Justice Ministry classified the documents behind betting ban MP 1.394 as restricted for five years

Brazil's Ministry of Justice and Public Security has restricted public access for five years to the administrative file used to prepare Provisional Measure (MP) 1.394/2026, the measure that ended the country's licensed fixed-odds betting market.

A one-page Termo de Classificação de Informação (information classification term) issued by the ministry's National Secretariat of Digital Rights classifies the file at the reservado (restricted) level. The term was made public on November 4 by Brazilian news site Poder360, which said it received the document when its request for the underlying studies and opinions under the Access to Information Law (Law 12.527/2011, known as the LAI) was refused.

What the classification term says

According to the term:

• File: SEI administrative process no. 08001.004576/2026-95, produced on September 24, 2026, under category 11, "Justice and Legislation".
• Grade and term: reservado, for five years. The indexing code, 08001.004576/2026-95.R.11.24/09/2026.24/09/2031.N, sets the restriction to run from September 24, 2026 to September 24, 2031.
• Legal basis: Article 25, items IV and V, of Decree 7.724/2012, combined with Article 23, items III and IV, of the LAI.
• Reasons given: disclosure would "put at risk the life, safety or health of the population" and "offer elevated risk to the financial, economic or monetary stability of the country".
• Classifying authority: Victor Oliveira Fernandes, National Secretary of Digital Rights, who signed the term on the same date.

The fields for declassification, reclassification, reduction or extension of the term are blank.

Under Article 24 of the LAI, reservado is the lowest of three secrecy grades, with a maximum restriction of five years; the secreto and ultrassecreto grades allow 15 and 25 years.

Timing and status of MP 1.394

The term is dated one day before President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed MP 1.394 on September 25, 2026, published in an extra edition of the Official Gazette the same day. The measure prohibits the operation, offer, intermediation and advertising of fixed-odds betting nationwide; the 85 federal betting authorisations it extinguished lapsed on October 25.

Congress's page for the measure still lists it as awaiting installation of its joint committee. The urgency regime starts on November 9, and the current deadline for deliberation is November 23, 2026. The ban is also being challenged at the Supreme Federal Court, which held a public hearing on it on November 3; earlier, Brazil's audit court declined to delay the ban and said licence-fee refund claims belong in the courts.

The Ministry of Justice had not published a statement on the classification as of November 5. More coverage of the measure is collected on AskSpinner's Brazil betting ban (MP 1.394) topic page.

Photo: Valter Campanato/Agência Brasil / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 (2016 file photo, cropped)

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