GMB - How important was to have participate in the LIKE THE FUTURE event that talked about the gaming market in Brazil? How do you evaluate it?
Marco Pequeno - The event was important for several reasons and I will highlight two that for me were the most importants. The first one is demystifying not only sports betting, which is my business, but also casinos; it was something we tried to reduce the taboo on this kind of market. We have people who are still very concerned about pointing out “this is wrong” and the image that people have of the sports bettor is absurd.
During the lecture you raised the issue of physical points for a good business progress after the regulation of sports betting. Do you think they really will be fundamental in such a digital world?
It's no use just being online. The law provides that we will have fixed odds physical bets. It’ll be necessary to have a physical store, a little betting house where the gambler leaves with a ticket, like a lottery retailer. This is fundamental. And for this person who is used to the ticket getting online is very complicated. Turning him to trust transfering to a foreign, online site is difficult. We are a country where many do not have internet access, there are illiterate people, some have no bank account; And how do you ask this person to register on the gambling site without a bank account? How will he withdraw this money? The way out is for you to educate this customer in a physical store so they can go digital in the future. It is necessary to bring the gambler to the digital in the future. Online gamblers are already used to it, but we have a very small portion close to what it can be. We have a huge population, I will not say that the 210 million Brazilians will bet, but, if we consider around 10%, it's a lot of people.
Tell us a little about your new agency IGaming 360. How did it come about and what led you into this sports betting market?
IGaming 360 was born of a dream of mine. I started working on this one in 2012 and since 2014, when I finished my first experience in the area, I always got a glimpse into working with it. I have never felt as comfortable working with a type of product as I felt with sports betting. I had worked with big technology companies in multinationals, and I didn't like it there, it wasn't my style. I have always been addicted to sports; I don't miss any Sao Paulo game. And one way I found to combine the two was to work with sports betting. I had this dream of creating something, I had an agency before, and I want to work with this market, serve these companies, and BetWay happened to talk to us and open the door for this dream to come true. The agency has a month today, now I can seek this market and IGaming 360 will provide me with this.
What are the main services the agency will offer and what would you point out as the company's big business?
We offer anything in the marketing environment, from social networking, blogging to SEO, we do affiliate work where we have an interesting case, every once in a while, we can do things that are hard, like performance, which is very complicated for betting sites in Brazil, and we got through mechanisms that few people know. We also do media trading. Our business is to turn your brand into an interesting business for the Brazilian gambler. How do you arrive in Brazil and show your brand in a productive, effective way? Our job is to guide what this company needs, to follow it throughout the process and sometimes even to do it for them. Alessandro Valente (Super Afiliados) says we need to “tropicalize the brands” and I totally agree with him because I saw the brands coming to Brazil and having difficulties with basic terms because they can't build anything before.
Which target audience are you looking to meet?
The operators. Today we already work with Betway. Our focus is on the operators, but we are not limited to that. Businesses are ideal, but we also offer affiliate solutions because I understand that the affiliate is very responsible for making the business move in Brazil, the sportsbook affiliate industry is huge, and we see that it has a big share in the success of the operators. It's no use coming to Brazil without an affiliate strategy, that's another point we need to teach companies. Many already know, but if they are coming or waiting for regulation, they need a good strategy with them because they are responsible for bringing clients. By answering the question very objectively: operators and affiliates, we want to work with them.
What is your opinion about the process of sports betting regulation under development in Brazil?
I think it is late. I wish it had come out many years ago. It is not to point the finger, but it would help that the market really opens and bring investor confidence, because there are companies that do not want to come before we have the regulation and really know what will happen. So, this delay that comes from years, Temer enacted the law late last year, but it comes from much earlier. What I hope is that this regulation comes out as soon as possible. I will not go into detail if it is good or not, but we need it to be done. Regulation is out and is not good enough, it can improve. These are adjustments that can be made in the future, but we need a regulation to come out for companies to come work with us so that the money no longer goes outside the country. The money staying in here is good for all the sector, everyone wins. Money spinning in here is the most important of the law. Bringing the market to light, giving a government seal to serious companies will give greater confidence to those who, for example, fear to carry out transactions on the Internet.
What is your assessment of the current sports betting market operating in Brazil with companies coming to the country and making investments even without official regulation?
The market scenario today can be separated into two things: operators and advertising. In the operators we have some very strong houses, like SportingBet, where I worked. The market for these players today is a little obscure because there is no measurement, we do not have data of how many players are, how many are online, there is not much of that. Each house has its own information, its own goal, but we can’t have a general market data. This is something that I hope will change, the government must have an interest in doing that.
In advertising terms, we are more or less in the same way, what we can do today is very close to potential. Potential is what we don't have that can be achieved. Brazil's potential for operation and disclosure is an absurd business. In terms of operation we can grow a lot with the regulation, of course, the price is high, but who wants to pay has a lot of chance to grow. You can easily have several players paying and getting happy. The Brazilian bets, he is a natural bettor, and who knows how to exploit this feature has a good counterpart.
And then comes the publicity. From the moment you have a more permissive market the cards can change. What can you do in terms of promotion? Today we can’t do much, we have a free website for broadcast on television and media channels, sponsorship of football clubs that is recent and had a boom in a matter of months. But by regulating, we can do performance. I can advertise and I'm not going to live alone what generates me a banner, I will be able to advertise on Facebook and measure my return. This is something that is crucial, having an idea of how much is coming back from your investment. This is the core of the business.
Looking to the future legalization of other gaming modes such as casinos, bingo and even other online games, do you think the sportsbook case has any lessons to teach for these activities when they have to work their brands? Which would be?
Understanding the Brazilian public is the main thing. You can't bring the Caesars brand to Brazil, with the Brazilian having a huge difficulty in pronouncing, in a still very critical poverty line and the social problems we have. If you do not understand the consumer and do not tropicalize your brand, you won’t be able to go forward here. Brands come here talking about a Latin American market, and that is not right. There is the Latin market that speaks Spanish and Brazil that speaks Portuguese, a totally different language and culture. So, understand what this person is looking for, their pains, who may not be able to say “Caesars”. The sports betting market is already well underway in this regard. Of course, everything only works with the trigger of the person wanting to go and play because they want to make money, look for adrenaline; but when all players are looking for space together, the trigger is not enough, needs divulgation, promotion. Sports betting collaborates in this sense by already having a very rich study of what works for the Brazilian consumer; although made in the gray zone of our current regulation already has a wealth of details for those who know how to look.
Source: Exclusive GMB
