Interactive

Brazil – Betinvest closing in on lucrative LATAM sports betting market

After scouting out a whole host of opportunities on the rise in South America Betinvest has said it will open an office in Brazil, the largest South American country, from where it will continue to provide itsproducts and solutions to local operators who are able to operate legally under the new legislation.

“Brazil is an excellent point of entry into the whole region,” said BetInvest’s VP of Business Development Valentyn Kyrylenko explained. “The market is huge and it has limitless potential for companies in the iGaming sector. It’s only going to get bigger, better and more lucrative in the years to come, and that’s good news all around. We plan to supply our time-tested sports betting products and solutions. Our products are 100 percent compliant with LATAM market requirements. We’ll be reconsidering our pricing for this region, since the offers we have for our European partners won’t suit those in the LATAM market very well. They don’t need as many events or markets in their Sportsbook, which means that we can reduce the price for them. We’re also working on creating some special offers for our partners in Latin American countries.”

Mr. Kyrylenko emphasised that sport is an important part of LATAM culture. “People love to watch sports, and to cheer on and support their favourite teams by placing bets,” he said. “At the moment, locals don’t have particularly good or relevant industry experience so they need high-level sports betting products and must learn how to work with them. This is one of the upcoming tasks for European providers. In fact, if estimates are to be believed, Latin America could be more lucrative than all the regulated gambling markets in the United States for the foreseeable future. If we look at the behaviour of Latin American players, we can see that people usually place bets with small stakes of around $5 to 10. It would be very unusual to see a stake as big as $1,000. We can see that their gaming style is quite different to that of European bettors and generally less advanced.”

Taking Peru as an example, he explained that having just a few markets and only around 4,000 events is sufficient. Another important point is that local players are more likely to trust companies as an operator if they have physical betting shops as well as online services.

“This is not due to the quality of the internet connection – it’s perfectly stable and having a mobile application is vital for every operator in order to meet their customers’ needs,” Mr. Kyrylenko explained. “The reason is simply that people have more confidence in a company when they’re used to seeing it in their local area. On average, the audience for gambling in Europe is younger than it is in South America. Some sports, including those that have a huge following in Europe, are practically non-existent in the LATAM region. Many will be surprised to hear about the passion for lotteries, as well as the rise in search traffic for sites that focus on games of chance. Regulators are very open and it’s easy to find all the necessary information.”