Brazil’s National Congress has extended the provisional measure that banned fixed-odds betting by a further 60 days, keeping the prohibition in force into March 2027 while lawmakers have yet to begin formally examining it.

The extension of Provisional Measure (MP) 1,394/2026 was signed by Senate and Congress president Davi Alcolumbre and published in the Official Gazette on Wednesday, 11 November, according to local trade reports. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed the measure on 25 September, banning the operation, offer, intermediation and advertising of sports betting and online casino games with immediate effect.

Recess pushes the deadline back

Under Brazil’s constitution, a provisional measure has the force of law for 60 days, extendable once by another 60, and lapses unless Congress converts it into law within that window. The clock stops during the parliamentary recess, which runs from 22 December to 2 February. Senate legislative consultant Gilberto Guerzoni said that suspension means the betting MP will now remain valid until around 4 March 2027.

“In practice, a provisional measure, whatever it may be, including this one, has a deadline of 120 days from the date it is issued. However, when Congress enters recess, that deadline is suspended,” Guerzoni said, as reported by iGaming Brasil.

The extended timetable gives Congress more room, but the process has barely started. The mixed committee of deputies and senators that must report on the MP before floor votes in both houses has not yet been installed. Lawmakers approved an urgency request linked to the measure on Monday, 9 November.

Pressure on the ban is building on several fronts at once. Enforcement against the unlicensed market has continued in parallel, with the Ministry of Justice and Public Security this week targeting 348 social media influencers accused of promoting illegal betting, while federal courts have been asked to rule on individual operators’ attempts to keep trading.

Courts and Senate hearings

The ban remains under challenge at the Supreme Federal Court (STF), where four direct actions of unconstitutionality have been filed against the MP. Rapporteur Minister Luiz Fux, who has said betting should be prohibited, held a ten-hour public hearing on the challenges earlier this month. Separately, the Senate Economic Affairs Committee is preparing a public hearing on the economic and social impact of the ban at the request of Senator Veneziano Vital do Rêgo. No date has been set.

The government has argued that the regulatory and monitoring framework built under Law 14,790/2023 was not adequate to protect the public. Operators counter that shutting the licensed market leaves players exposed to unlicensed sites with no controls. The 85 federal licences issued under that framework, each costing R$30m, expired at the end of October, with no refund of fees.

What comes next

For international operators and suppliers that had built Brazilian businesses since the market opened in January 2025, the extension prolongs uncertainty rather than resolving it. Congress could still amend the measure, for example by restoring a narrower licensed regime, reject it, or let it lapse, while the STF has yet to rule on its constitutionality. With the committee still to be formed and the recess approaching, a decision on the future of Brazilian betting is now unlikely before February.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has warned Kalshi that it faces imminent charges over the way it notified the agency of new contracts, according to reports by Politico and Reuters, opening an unexpected federal front for a prediction market operator that has so far relied on the CFTC as its main ally against state gambling regulators.

Politico first reported on 10 November that the regulator was poised to bring charges. Reuters followed the same day, citing a person familiar with the matter who said Kalshi had received a notification warning of imminent charges. No charges had been filed as of 11 November, and the CFTC did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

Self-certification at issue

According to the reports, the warning follows a months-long investigation into whether Kalshi properly notified the CFTC of dozens of new products. As a designated contract market, Kalshi can list most new contracts by self-certifying them to the regulator, rather than seeking prior approval.

Kalshi has played down the matter. The warning “is about a procedural error involving the submission of a handful of contracts, many of which weren’t live,” the company told Reuters, adding: “We are already addressing the issue.”

Neither report described the warning as a formal notice of a specific enforcement recommendation, and the potential penalty, if any, is unknown. A procedural case would be far narrower than the existential challenges Kalshi faces from states, but it would be the first time its federal regulator has moved against it in the current sports contracts boom.

An awkward moment for the CFTC

The reports land as the CFTC is aggressively defending prediction markets against state action. Last week the agency told prediction markets to stop geofencing out individual states within 30 days, and it has sued Utah, which filed criminal charges against Kalshi and its two co-founders in late October.

State attorneys general and gaming regulators are likely to seize on any federal enforcement action as evidence that the CFTC’s oversight of event contracts is less robust than prediction market operators claim. Arkansas became the latest state to go to court this week, suing Kalshi and Chumba operator VGW over illegal gambling.

The news also arrives less than two weeks after Kalshi raised $1bn at a $40bn valuation, underlining how quickly the regulatory risk around the sector is evolving even as capital continues to pour in.

Political pressure builds

Pressure on prediction markets is also building in Washington. Following last week’s elections, Democratic lawmakers have stepped up scrutiny: Representative Ro Khanna has called on Congress to ban sports prediction markets, according to The Hill, and Senator Elizabeth Warren has said she will increase oversight of the sector, according to Decrypt.

A CFTC case over Kalshi’s certification practices would not on its own change the legal status of sports event contracts, which remains before multiple federal appeals courts and potentially the Supreme Court. But it would give the agency’s critics an argument at a sensitive moment, and it could prompt other exchanges listing large numbers of self-certified contracts to review their own filings with the regulator.

Brazil’s Ministry of Justice and Public Security (MJSP) has asked for the removal of 348 Instagram profiles belonging to influencers it says are promoting illegal betting, as the government widens its enforcement of the national ban on fixed-odds betting from websites to the social media accounts that drive traffic to them.

The ministry announced the action on 9 November. It said the profiles have a combined following of more than 150 million, with the largest single account counting 1.4 million followers.

The work was carried out by the ministry’s National Secretariat for Digital Rights (Sedigi) and National Public Security Secretariat (Senasp) through its Cyber Operations Laboratory (Ciberlab). The announcement describes takedown requests sent to the platforms. It did not say whether the profiles have been removed, and no fines were announced.

Pages, groups and sites

Alongside the influencer accounts, the ministry said it had identified 2,207 Facebook pages with a combined audience of 7.5 million, 18 Telegram groups with about 182,000 members and 998 websites in the same period.

Since the ban took effect on 25 September, the MJSP said it has identified more than 60,000 items. These comprise 51,611 websites, 6,596 Facebook pages reaching 34 million people, more than 900 Instagram profiles, 1,442 Telegram groups with 25.6 million members and 127 TikTok profiles. The cumulative total stood at 20,318 on 9 October, meaning it has roughly tripled in a month.

“It is not enough to take illegal betting sites offline if these platforms keep reaching the public through influencers and social media,” said Wellington César Lima e Silva, minister of justice and public security (translated from Portuguese).

Victor Fernandes, national secretary for digital rights, said the government needs to “cut off the promotion channels, especially the profiles that use their influence to draw consumers to prohibited services” (translated).

The ministry is also asking the public to report illegal betting promotion through the government’s Fala.BR channel. The full announcement is published in Portuguese on the ministry’s website.

Legal basis and court fight

The legal basis for the crackdown is Provisional Measure (MP) 1,394/2026 of 25 September, which prohibits operating, offering, intermediating and advertising fixed-odds betting and sets rules on player protection and refunds. Under Brazilian law a provisional measure has immediate force but must be considered by Congress.

The ban has faced a series of legal challenges. On 9 November, the same day as the MJSP announcement, Supreme Federal Court (STF) justice Luiz Fux suspended nationwide all court cases disputing the constitutionality of the MP until the STF gives a final ruling, according to a court statement. The order was issued in ADI 8027 at the request of the Prosecutor-General’s Office, and is pending confirmation by the full court.

Fux cited legal uncertainty created by lower-court rulings that had suspended the MP, and the risk of releasing an activity he described as harmful and of high social risk. The effect is to freeze those challenges and keep the ban in place. Fux had already signalled his position when the court heard the first challenge to the ban last week, saying bets should be banned.

The suspension also closes off the route several operators had used to win temporary relief, as seen when a federal appeals court reinstated the ban on CDA Gaming’s brands a day after granting it.

What comes next

Separately, the president of Brazil’s financial intelligence unit Coaf, Ricardo Saadi, said in an interview with Globo media that licensed operators had been filing the suspicious-transaction reports required of them, while illegal operators filed none, a point the formerly licensed industry has used to argue that prohibition will push activity out of sight.

Congress must still consider MP 1,394/2026, while the STF’s full court has yet to rule on its constitutionality. In the meantime, the government’s focus on influencers suggests enforcement will increasingly target marketing and payment channels rather than offshore sites that can be easily relaunched.