Brazil banned betting on 25 September: deposits first, then a dark screen

Licensed betting in Brazil had only been running under the new rules since 1 January 2025 when it was put on pause. On 25 September 2026 Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed provisional measure 1.394. From that day a hall may not take fixed-odds sports bets or online games, may not advertise them, and may not sit between the player and that cashier — in a room or on the network. Ordinary state lotteries of another kind were left outside that signature.

Deposits stopped on the day of publication. Withdrawals stayed open until 23:59 on 5 October so people could collect what remained. From 6 October licensed sites and apps are supposed to go dark, and banks and payment firms are supposed to stop processing bets. The exception is closing an account and returning money to the player.

The measure applies at once, but it is not yet a permanent law. Congress has 120 days to approve it. If it does not, the rule falls away. Until that day the market lives as switched off: new money does not come in, old money is meant to leave, and the shopfront goes dark on a calendar, not when a moderator gets round to it.

For a player in Ukraine the Brazilian calendar is not an invitation to look for a workaround. Offshore halls that promise to keep serving Brazilians fall under the same text if they serve that country. A foreign decree does not open or close a Ukrainian account: PlayCity, the licence and the restriction register still decide.

What is useful here is the shape of a shutdown done by dates, not by a banner. First a stop on money coming in, then a window for payouts, then a dark site. Anyone holding a balance “for later” is late for the payout, not for the slot.

The week after 6 October will show whether the halls actually went dark or the shopfronts stayed up. For now one fact holds: on 25 September a deposit into a licensed Brazilian hall was already refused. The rest are dates, and they should not be swapped for today.