GMB - What is your assessment of Vibra Gaming's performance and growth in 2023 in general? Was it as expected or did it exceed your expectations?
Ramiro Atucha - The growth we had in 2023 exceeded our expectations. During 2022, we noticed surprising interest in a specific product of our company: our content aggregation platforms such as PAM and the sports betting platform. This unexpected interest revealed the urgent need for a certified platform, specially developed for the Latin American market, a demand that we had not anticipated.
In response to this demand, we created Vibra Solutions. This new entity was created to focus exclusively on meeting the needs of the Latin American market, avoiding affecting the priorities of Vibra Gaming, which continues to be iGaming Studio.
Throughout 2023, we were able to successfully position Vibra Solutions in the market, exceeding our expectations. The growth of Vibra Solutions has not only met its objectives, but has also significantly boosted the growth of iGaming Studio. This allowed our content and the aggregation of third-party content that we do to reach more operators, achieving a good positioning and a prominent place.
What is your assessment of Vibra’s performance and growth in the Brazilian market in 2023?
I believe that today Brazil is our most important market, and we are experiencing significant growth. We already have the participation of several operators in the Brazilian market who are using our platform. The content we created specifically for Brazil is performing excellently. We invested a lot in creating “Scratch-a-lot”, our lottery-powered slots certified by GLI as a lottery. We are supporting several clients in the process of preparing for regulation, from platform, content and certified processes, aligned with expectations regarding legislation. At the same time, with products that meet the requirements of the state lotteries that are being regulated, both for online and physical terminals.
Soon, we will announce some launches in the state regulated market with omni channel solutions, a source of great pride for us. We firmly believe that these launches will contribute significantly to the growth of this market and our company throughout 2024.
Could you list the main achievements or objectives achieved?
I believe that the main achievement was being able, in such a short time, to establish ourselves as a reference in the Latin American market with Vibra Solutions. With our platform, we had already established ourselves as a reference in terms of content, and the growth of our content aggregation platform has helped many game partners reach these markets.
As for financial results, fortunately, we have grown a lot, which allows us to support this expansion. Starting to see positive feedback from our customers, operators and players who use our products is also very rewarding. We have several agreements to continue our expansion into other regulated markets that will be announced soon, which also makes us proud.
In your sector, what themes or technological advances do you think will dominate the market in 2024? What will be the future trends?
I believe that, especially in Latin America, there has been very uneven growth in the supply of games due to the lack of regulation and the lack of penetration of online solutions. This means that many important operators have a very uneven product offering. They started with a land- based product offering, with certain suppliers and then added other products that were not necessarily integrated. Later, they came up with online products, also with different technological solutions, which created many limitations for customers. For example, identifying a customer as a VIP on a land-based who was not recognized as such online or in another area of the same company, difficulties in carrying out marketing campaigns and creating competitive products, as well as maximizing the integration of new products.
I believe that as LatAm advances with regulation, it will be an opportunity and also a challenge for all these operators to organize and unify truly omnichannel solutions, where they have a single PAM, where there is a centralized offer and the ability to treat the customer in a consistent manner. This will be the main challenge faced by the sector, the main trend that the sector will have in Latin America.
I believe that providers will have to rise to the occasion to meet the needs of each of these customers to understand how they have operated and be able to facilitate a friendly transition for both them and their players in the face of regulation and a unique reality that leaves them with a competitive product.
What is your general opinion about the regulation of the sports betting and online gaming market in Brazil?
The reality is that we are still waiting for it to be formally announced. We have seen many versions that have changed. The last one I have seen indicate that they were treated with reasonable transition levels and taxes. Fundamentally, they are including not only sports betting, but also casino. It is important to understand that around 80% of the profit from any iGaming operation comes from the casino, not from sports betting. Forcing someone to obtain an expensive license, meeting a series of requirements financed only by sports betting, this will complicate things a lot and will bring many difficulties to these operators who opted for regulation to compete with the unregulated market. So, from what I am seeing, the market is being regulated in a reasonable manner, including products and allowing those who invest in regulation to be competitive.
Otherwise, unfortunately, what would be done is harming the one who acquires the license, the one who strives to be compliant, putting him at a disadvantage compared to the one who does not. It is also essential not to charge taxes from players, not to place taxes on the withdrawal of prizes, as unregulated opeators do not do this. Therefore, the player will always end up opting for the unregulated market, and that is what we want to avoid.
What are Vibra's main goals/objectives for 2024 in the Brazilian market? And on a global level?
Consolidation. We have several projects started, some of which have not yet been announced, and which generate a lot of expectation among our customers in the market. We need to continue improving our solution without interruption, maintaining flexibility and adapting to the needs of our customers. Our objective is to continue consolidating our presence in the Brazilian market, expand our presence in other markets such as Argentina, Peru and Mexico, and further strengthen our position in Latin America, which is our home, our market and the region for which we develop all our products.
Source: GMB Exclusive
