Gustavo Fogaça is a filmmaker, journalist and performance analyst for sports betting at LANCE! and on the “Pitaco do Guffo” channel on Youtube and Twitch. He lived abroad for more than 25 years and when he returned to Brazil, he began to dedicate himself to the analysis of football performance, with the aim of offering his knowledge to managers, coaches, trainers physicists and clubs.
Currently, the journalist shares the Goal Betshow studio with Bruno Laurence and Mari Alberoni to discuss football, sponsored by Rivalo, and maintains a channel on LANCE! about sports betting, sponsored by galera.bet, as well as its channel “Pitaco do Guffo”, where he talks about football and betting.
Below are the main excerpts from the interview.
GMB - First of all, tell us a little about your career as a filmmaker, journalist and performance analyst in sports betting.
Guffo - I was born in Porto Alegre, but I left the city very early, because my mother worked for the UN, which led me to live outside Brazil for more than 25 years in ten different countries. I ended up majoring in cinema and journalism in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I started working in these areas. With the 2000 crisis, I ended up returning to Brazil and got involved in an audiovisual career, as a screenwriter and director, I made feature films, documentaries and TV shows, among other things related to the area.
But there came a time in my life when I started working in the area of football performance analysis, a kind of technical assistant with many scientific tools, data, images and tactical and technical analysis, which enables the professional to offer performance of athletes and clubs to provide such content to managers, coaches and physical trainers. I took the performance analyst course in Murcia, Spain, and returned to Brazil before the 2014 World Cup. It wasn't a recognized profession, so an opportunity arose at Esporte Interativo and I started creating content for performance analysis and commentary on the Northeast Cup, a product of Esporte Interativo. That's when I joined this segment as a sports commentator.
At that moment I realized that I needed to stand out in a very competitive world and decided to bring my knowledge of performance analysis to sports commentary. I ended up going to Rádio Grenal and then went to work at Grupo RBS, staying for four years. Then I went to DAZN and from there I expanded my range as a sports commentator on the networks. By understanding even more about data analysis, I realized how connected sports betting is to data analysis. As a bettor or someone who works with betting it is very important to know such data than someone who works with the sport itself. Odds variations, market pressure, whether you are a trader or a punter are very important details in this area. From then on, I started to make content for sports analysis, which also gave me a differential. There were few professionals doing this. So I brought a different look at sports betting.
In this way, last May 27th, we launched the GOAL Betshow 2nd Season show, sponsored by bookmaker Rivalo, which I do with Bruno Laurence and Mari Alberoni, where we receive athletes and former athletes, for comments on sports betting.
And since last year I've been head of content for Footstats, the largest provider of football data in Latin America. We are official data providers for Globo, Cartola, SportTV and bookmakers.
And I recently signed a partnership with LANCE!, sponsored by galera.bet, for content aimed at the betting market.
So you’ve had a very interesting experience in the sports betting area!
Undoubtedly. Very interesting and challenging, as the sector is constantly changing. There are several things to happen in terms of regulation. There are many doubts in people, and many approach without understanding what it is about and some still think that it is not a legal activity. We are in a process of learning and awareness, passing on responsible and healthy information. We need to be careful.
Football in Brazil is one of the most watched, explored and wagered in the world. What analysis do you make of the country in the world of football?
Brazilians have always had a tendency towards challenge and risk. We've always been passionate about sport, but also about winning, not just to watch. And betting brings this challenge of victory, achievement and a reward for something I believed in and invested in. It is a very fertile field for us to create a healthy sports betting culture that is a productive chain and generates jobs and dividends for federal and state revenues. The betting industry wheel can be very beneficial for Brazil. Sports betting is all about the bettor's soul. We need to have responsible betting campaigns and everything else that we still don't have in Brazil.
And with the sports betting houses in full growth, with the example of the Brasileirão championship where only Palmeiras is not sponsored by a company of the sector!
The market is huge. Of course, it is still irregular due to the lack of regulation, but it shows, even at this initial moment, that there is a lot of room for growth, not only for bookmakers, but for clubs and specialized media such as Games Magazine Brasil. It is a very rich and growing industry.
Has the philosophy you adopt on your channel ensured good interaction with your followers?
Yes, a lot. Many people ask me on social media about sports betting. And basic and innocent doubts, sometimes, which demonstrate little knowledge about the area or the market. There is a huge demand on knowledge of this, how it works and where it is going. There's an image that it's easy money where you just sit down and push a button to start making money. It's not like this. It is a process and there are risks. You lose money and that's part of it. It's important to address emotional control on top of that. I see that my interaction has gone down the preparatory path rather than more professional questions. When the person feels safer and lets go of my hand and goes on their way. Eventually, he comes to exchange ideas about what he has achieved.
You mentioned the legalization of sports betting. Do you believe is it coming?
Yes. The regulation of Law 13.756/18 will only bring benefits. We will have at least between R$ 5 and 8 billion moving the job market, from taxes to job creation. It's like the car industry, which generates tertiary jobs. The sustainability chain, as I said before, can be infinite and expand to various sectors. Of course, we are talking about Brazil, where corruption is high, but I cannot say that only the regulation will bring certainty to the market, but it will bring more legal tranquility, because it will be possible to complain about a Brazilian CNPJ, which can be punished if it did anything irregular with your data or money. It will give more peace of mind to know that the money is going in and out in a national financial area and not abroad without knowing if it is being used to launder money outside Brazil. I am totally in favor of regulation. It will expand the market and give us much more peace of mind to work with.
With the regulation, do you have new projects in mind?
We want, first, to understand who will be in this market. We are talking about more than 500 online bookmakers and with regulation, it will decrease at least three times. It is said that at the beginning there would be 30 houses and then expand year by year. And in the beginning, the big companies with greater credibility will certainly stay.
The new draft decree that regulates sports betting does not limit the number of houses...
Great information, which I didn't have. In any case, the houses will have to be installed in Brazil and hire teams. The negotiations and positions that we have now, with these houses to whom we deliver content and services, are paving the way for us to be partners from this moment forward when this process arrives. I am not able to say, at this moment, how the consumption of sports betting in Brazil will be in the future, because casinos will also arrive and online gaming will continue to grow. Investments in this segment are also growing, along with the stakes that accompany this vertical. I can't frame how all this will turn out, but personally I intend to strengthen my alliances and be always available to create new content and situations, being flexible to what the market demands in the future, as this is very volatile and what people need today, can not need the same type of content tomorrow. So, we need to be prepared for whatever comes.
Source: Exclusive GMB
