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 first part of an ongoing series, Skeie addresses Brazilian audience’s desire for entertainment in their betting and gaming experiences.
Image: OddsMatrix
The Brazilian igaming and sports betting market is set to open a regulated environment in two months.
A regulated Brazil has been the talk of the industry for the last seven years but with January 2025 on the horizon it’s now about to get real with more than 110 betting operators preparing to launch to more than 200 million adults, 70% of whom are under the age of 30.
So much has been written about Brazil and its projected $10bn+ regulated potential within just four years but often without focusing on what matters most; the players, their experiences with betting as it stands today, player behaviours across multiple touchpoints, player likes and dislikes and a detailed looked at feature gap analysis, something no one has uncovered. Until now.
At EveryMatrix, we’re always proud to say we’re ready for regulation and we always ensure our customers are too, however we’re acutely aware not everyone is. Therefore, in partnership with ENV Media, we conducted an extensive player behaviour survey interviewing more than 1,800 sports bettors across Brazil.
We will present our findings across six key themes: Entertainment, localisation, brand & loyalty, coverage, features and cross-sell.
They will show that Brazil is a market that offers enormous potential, but also one that remains in an early transformative phase, characterised by rapid growth and fluctuating regulatory developments that are both striving to catch up with reality and fighting back against those who believe gambling to be harmful to individuals and the economy.
For those about to press the green ‘go live’ button, this series will make for essential reading.
In our opening analysis we will explore ‘Entertainment’ and take a deep dive into how well-versed players already are in online betting, how they discover sites and offers and their habits and preferences including their favourite sports, leagues, teams, bets and more. Here’s what we found.
Brazil’s sports bettors are well ahead of the curve for a soon-to-be-regulated online gambling market. They are sports fanatics and this is likely to intensify even further within a new legal betting environment.
They are already highly active online, on mobile and consume online entertainment in a more sophisticated way than many other countries with social media and streaming front and centre.
Social Media (*49% of respondents selected this option as their first choice from a ‘select all that apply option’) and online advertisements (47%) are the two most popular discovery channels for online betting in Brazil.
More than two-thirds (66%) of players said they engage with betting content on ‘mainstream’ social media such as Instagram, Facebook and X, with 33% using rapidly rising mobile messenger apps such as Telegram and WhatsApp, and 31% on short form video such as YouTube, Twitch, TikTok and Kwai.
More than half (51%) of those we spoke to said live streaming games directly from operator sites is an ‘expected’ means of consuming content, followed by real-time statistics and analysis (42%) suggesting the audience operators face in January will be sharper bettors than most and are eager to engage with as much live, relevant and low latency, on-demand content as possible.
They don’t simply want to bet; they want fast access to the most accurate and informative data and content. Therefore, enabling live streaming and related promotions holds great commercial potential in Brazil and offering these features is proven to significantly enhance user engagement.
It will come as no surprise that the majority (77%) of players said their main motivation to bet is to “earn money”, however 47% selected entertainment suggesting a fine line between financial gain and fun.
We all expect Brazilians to bet on their own leagues and their favourite footballers in the famous gold and blue strip right? Yes and no. They love to bet on their domestic competitions; however, the betting world today is more international than ever and, with such an educated and bet savvy audience as this, the story is multi-layered.
In general terms nearly half of players (43%) are influenced to bet by their favourite teams or competitions, with sponsorships and partnerships with popular teams proven to enhance brand loyalty, while promoting partnerships and offering team-specific promotions was found to attract dedicated fans.
The most popular sports betting leagues overall are the local Brazilian Serie A (71% as a first choice), Champions League (48%), Football World Cup (40%) and the Copa America (38%), while NBA basketball (21%) and NFL American football (11%) are among the fastest growing.
Within the international betting competitions Serie A (56%), the Spanish La Liga (44%) and English Premier League (44%) make up the top three and are followed with a growing interest in the Women’s Brazilian championship (28%), Brazilian volleyball super league (24%) and National Futsal league (17%).
Forty percent of players bet equally on international versus local games, while nearly half of players (49%) value localisation ‘highly’ suggesting that localising themes and markets enhances user satisfaction and engagement and offering localised content and promotions attracts more regular users.
Close to 60% consider it ‘important’ or ‘very important’ to have good betting options on more ‘niche’ Brazilian sports such as beach football or volleyball, while localised bonuses and promotions (60%) and live Portuguese language games (49%) are top of bettor preferences.
The quality of football (59%) and betting opportunities (42%) were found to be the top motivators to follow international events, however time zone differences (44%) and lack of information (39%) make up the top challenges.
While there is nothing operators can change when it comes to time zones, more information, more data and more access to international competitions, particularly football, could be a decisive factor in winning new customers in January.
[*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]
During our research we discovered that, despite its rapid growth and significant potential, Brazil exhibits notable gaps between demand and supply within its existing betting and gaming industry. New regulations will shape it significantly, but several areas need to be addressed to fully capture its potential.
We found that players want:
OddsMatrix covers those areas and much more, and if it’s entertainment Brazilian players want then our modular platform, software and data feed services has it in spades.
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