SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Latin America has emerged as one of the key growth areas for the sports betting and igaming industry, and the 2024 Copa América is likely to provide the perfect opportunity for international operators to make their mark in the region’s varied markets.
Here Margarita Cruz, Senior Sales Director for platform provider Digitain, shares her expertise on what operators need to do to prepare for next summer’s feast of football and how they can start to localise their offerings.
Digitain has been active in Latin America for some time; what’s your experience of the markets in the region, and where do you see the biggest opportunities emerging?
Latin America has been growing consistently for the last decade. This is in part driven by the continent’s love of football, better infrastructure, growing economies, and regulation.
The whole of the continent presents opportunities, given the population demographics, but markets such as Peru, Colombia and Brazil shall present long-term growth opportunities.
As more Latin American countries investigate the possibility of regulation, what do operators – both established offshore and international companies looking to expand – need to do to prepare for that change?
Regulation and responsible gaming are a positive step forward for all within the igaming supply chain, both operators and platform providers.
Central to this is ensuring a healthy dialogue with regulators and the frameworks that they require to attain a licence or certification, or both.
From Digitain’s standpoint, our compliance team works with the product teams and third-party testing labs, to ensure a robust end-to-end process to meet the exacting standards set forth by each country’s regulators. This is a complex process and takes time and cannot be rushed.
As a business we support regulatory compliance as it benefits all parties within the industry.
The region’s markets have many variations in everything from player tastes to payment methods; how does Digitain help its partners to create truly localised offerings?
Our sportsbook and gaming solutions can be adapted on many different levels. The front-end UI can be localised to the brand and display events / markets popular within that geographic area.
From a risk management perspective, our professional trading team reviews every market; odds and margins can be configured to operational needs and based on competitors, to ensure operators can attract players to their brand.
Payments are crucial and our Paydrom solution is a payment gateway and payment service, which encompasses 50+ providers, 400+ payment methods, which includes local LatAm options. This provides operators with optimal acceptance rates and management of the payments flow.
We shall continue to localise our solutions, as every operator partner is unique and wishes to have points of difference.
Trust and reputation are very important components of building a relationship in any market. Digitain’s brand ambassador, Mr Luis Figo, is well known in Latin America and has helped to raise the awareness of our company in this market.
Latin America is famed for its passion for football, but there’s far more to the region’s gambling industry than the beautiful game. Which other sports are popular with bettors? And what about other verticals?
Football does drive the eyes, hearts, and betting wallets of most players. However, virtual sports are growing in popularity across many LatAm markets, as they provide a faster experience than perhaps the live football.
Overall, as players have access to many portals, comparison sites, and reviews within social media, basketball and tennis are growing in popularity in LatAm.
We will drive the demand for more choice of igaming products, similar to how it has evolved in continental Europe or more mature markets.
And finally, the Copa América kicks off in mid-June; how can Digitain help operators looking to launch in Latin American markets get up and running in time for a tournament that has the potential to be a customer acquisition bonanza?
We love Copa América! Digitain can offer various solutions to get to market. These include our iGaming Platform, which is a comprehensive solution for online sports betting and casino operators. It offers a wide range of features designed to enhance the player experience, increase engagement, and drive business growth.
Our Turnkey solution delivers our proprietary Sportsbook, which is covered by: 1,000+ in-house risk managers and sports traders; for 100+ sports; 100,000+ Real Live Monthly Events; 15,000+ Leagues; 3,000+ Betting Markets.
Or partners can use the API option, which continues to be very popular, as this includes the complete range of products and services available in the Turnkey version.
Our traders shall also provide specific Copa América novelty and special markets, as well as promotions for operators to ensure players have the best experience possible for this amazing tournament.
