The Legislative Assembly of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil was unable to hold a session last Tuesday the 31st due to a lack of quorum, leaving 16 proposals that were on the agenda unaddressed. Among them was PL 408/2025, a bill promoted by Deputy Tiago Simon of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) along with another parliamentarian, which establishes a state regulatory framework for the advertising of fixed-odds sports betting platforms. The proposals will return to the plenary next Tuesday the 7th, where they will be analyzed along with 13 other matters defined by party leaders.
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The project, which appeared as item 12 on the agenda, proposes to complement current federal legislation —in particular Federal Law 14.790 of December 29, 2023, and Federal Law 13.756 of December 12, 2018— with rules adapted to the particularities and needs of the population of Rio Grande do Sul. Its stated objective is to protect consumers, safeguard children and youth, provide support to vulnerable people, and contribute to the prevention of gambling addiction and over-indebtedness.
Mandatory warnings in all advertisements in Brazil
One of the central axes of PL 408/2025 is the mandatory inclusion of warnings about the risks of gambling in all advertisements for sports betting platforms in Brazil. These warnings must be visible and legible, with a minimum font size equivalent to 15% of the total area of the advertisement. In the case of audio formats, the warning message must be broadcast at the same volume and speed as the main content, to prevent it from being diluted or becoming imperceptible.
The project also expressly prohibits any advertising content directed, directly or indirectly, at minors under 18 years of age, including the use of animations, mascots, fictional characters, artificial intelligence systems, or visual resources that may be attractive to children and young people.
Time restrictions and protected geographical zones
Regarding schedules, the project establishes that audiovisual advertising for sports betting may only be broadcast between 21:00 and 06:00 hours, both on free-to-air and pay television as well as on streaming and radio platforms. Outside of that time slot, advertisements will be prohibited unless they have certified age segmentation for those over 18 years old.
Geographically, the initiative prohibits advertising in the vicinity of schools, daycares, educational institutions, and sports venues frequented mainly by minors. This territorial restriction seeks to create protection zones in environments where children and adolescents have a greater presence, a measure already being debated in other countries in the region, including Argentina.
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Sanctions and shared responsibility
The sanctions regime provided for in PL 408/2025 establishes a chain of responsibility that goes beyond betting operators and involves advertising agencies, media outlets, and internet service providers that disseminate or fail to block irregular content. This joint responsibility seeks to close the gaps that, in practice, allow prohibited advertising to continue circulating because each link in the chain passes the responsibility to the next.
Sanctions range from an initial warning with a maximum period of 30 days to regularize the situation, to doubled fines in case of recidivism, temporary suspension of advertising for between 30 and 180 days, suspension of the authorization to operate in the state, and, in extreme cases, the cancellation of the state registration. The funds collected through fines will be allocated to the State Consumer Protection Fund and to gambling addiction prevention programs, thus creating a mechanism for direct reinvestment in the problems that the law itself seeks to combat.
Companies already operating in the state will have 120 days from the publication of the rule to adapt their advertising campaigns and sponsorship contracts to the new provisions.
The underlying constitutional debate
The initiative is not without legal tensions. In Brazil, when a state law contradicts a federal law, the conflict is resolved in favor of the federal rule, based on the principle of normative hierarchy and the distribution of legislative powers established by the Federal Constitution of 1988. This means that if any provision of PL 408/2025 were to collide with current federal legislation, it could be declared unconstitutional.
This is the scenario surrounding the next session on Tuesday the 7th, when the legislators of Rio Grande do Sul resume the debate. The possibility that part of the articles may be challenged in court does not nullify the value of the initiative as a political signal, but it forces the project’s proponents to ensure that each proposed restriction falls within the margins that state competence allows.
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