SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Tor Skeie, CEO at OddsMatrix, shares insights with SBC News revealing how to adopt a winning strategy for the regulated Brazil market when it opens on January 1. In the second part of an ongoing series, Skeie addresses Brazilian audience’s desire for entertainment in their betting and gaming experiences.
Part 2: Localisation
After multiple years of national debate and political negotiation, the Brazilian igaming and sports betting market is set to open a regulated environment in January 2025.
With a projected market value of $4bn by 2029, this will be a pivotal moment for our industry.
At OddsMatrix we’ve partnered with media agency ENV Media to conduct an extensive player behaviour survey to identify precisely what Brazilian sports bettors enjoy today and what more they want to see from within a soon to be regulated framework.
Interviewing more than 1,800 sports bettors across Brazil we will present the findings of this player analysis across five themes: Entertainment, Localisation, Brand, Coverage and Features.
In our second analysis we explore ‘Localisation’ and reveal how players value local football events compared to international competitions, while also drilling down into niche Brazilian sports to measure just how popular they are with the betting public. Here’s what we found.
Keeping it local is logical… when you look at the stats
The exuberant samba dancing; the bright swathes of yellow and green, the buoyant drumbeat sounds. Brazilian sports fans have built up a legendary reputation over the years for passionate displays of adoration directed towards their teams and stars.
At the heart of this is a palpable pride and deep respect for their roots, culture and identity.
This patriotism also shines through among Brazilian bettors with a desire to ‘bet local’ a core theme running through our player investigation.
The globalisation of sports data in the last 15 years has triggered a vast increase in betting events within modern, online sportsbooks. At OddsMatrix, we offer our customers’ players up to 170,000 live events every month, but despite the explosion of international content and choice, a large proportion of Brazilian bettors prefer to play and engage with domestic sports betting options. In our survey, 42% of players said they would rather stake their money on local rather than international events.
This leaning towards ‘local-first’ content is also demonstrated within football betting preferences. The English Premier League may have evolved into the number one football betting event globally in the last 10 years with huge volumes of interest across large swathes of Europe and Africa, but this passion for the Prem does not convert across the soon-to-be regulated Brazilian market according to our data.
The country’s top-flight football division, the Serie A, a league laden with iconic clubs like Palmeiras, Corinthians, Flamengo and Pele’s Santos very much lies within the heart of the Brazilian betting public.
More than two-thirds (71%) of respondents said they frequently bet on Brazil’s top club competition, more than any other domestic league and 23% more than Europe’s Champions League. The English Premier League and Spanish La Liga lie further back on 44%.
This passion for local competitions also extends to other football tournaments outside of Serie A such as the Copa do Brasil (73% said they closely follow the domestic cup event), and Serie B with 44% paying close attention to the domestic second tier.
The rise in interest and awareness of women’s football has also spread to Brazil. An ever-present nation in the Women’s World Cup, the As Canarinhas reached the final in 2007 powered by the iconic Marta with 28% of bettors stating they closely follow the burgeoning Brasileirao Feminino football competition.
This data clearly suggests that offering players a comprehensive programme of multi-tier, men’s and women’s domestic football content will be essential for any operators looking to thrive in 2025 and beyond.
Niche needs
As well as a strong desire to bet on domestic football, the findings of our player study also point to a passion among punters to engage with a broader mix of localised sportsbook content.
While football dominates in Brazil, the South American nation also a rich history in other sports such as volleyball (three-time male Olympic gold medal winners), motor racing (who can forget Ayrton Senna) and basketball (two-time world champions).
Fifty nine percent of respondents felt it was important to have a wide range of coverage on more niche, local sports while 86% said they had placed bets on secondary betting sports such as beach football, volleyball and futsal.
Supplementing these numbers further, 43% of players indicated their betting behaviour is influenced by their favourite teams or competitions across the sporting spectrum.
These numbers indicate that multi-sport localisation is not just an advantage but a necessity for operators who are aiming to capture attention and share in the soon to be regulated Brazilian market.
Offering a strong diet of localised betting content across several core and niche sport types supported by multi-language optionality and native payment provider infrastructure holds the key to success in Brazil.
[*Data provided is from 1,800 regular sports betting players across Brazil. If totals are above 100% this is due to multiple choice questions that include a “select all that apply” response]
OddsMatrix – how we bridge the localisation gap:
It is clear from our research there is a strong appetite for localised sports betting content in Brazil, not just in football but also in niche products.
The OddsMatrix platform meets these player needs with a content-rich, optimal offering for the soon to be regulated market. Here are just a few examples.
- Among its 170,000+ monthly live events, OddsMatrix has extensive pre-live and live coverage of all Serie A, Serie B, Serie C and Serie D fixtures in Brazil
- Within this service we offer 450+ pre-live markets on Serie A and over 250 across the lowly Serie D division
- All domestic Brazilian fixtures are available on our comprehensive 11 sport pre-live and live Bet Builder product
- OddsMatrix also offers 100+ markets per match on the fast-growing Brasileirão Feminino competition
- OddsMatrix offers players 78 traditional sports bet types including Brazilian favourites like Beach Volleyball and Futsal.
- This localised service also expands to 22 local Basketball competitions with over 50 pre-live markets on these events.
- With a savvy, local focused sports betting audience, OddsMatrix has sophisticated automated risk management systems in place to control liabilities
