GMB – How do you see BiS SiGMA Americas 2023?
Rodrigo Alves – The fair is impressive this year, especially because we participated in the two previous editions. The growth made this fair truly international. We participated with two stands, Eightromm and vpag, welcoming many people interested in our products. It has been very interesting and it gives us joy to participate once again in this event, which is a reference in Latin America.
Eightroom is one of the most important players in the affiliation field in iGaming. With a fair of this size, this will open up many opportunities for Eightroom. How do you rate it?
Undoubtedly. Many national clients with more recent operations, but also several international players. Many of them are familiar with Eightroom activity, both in the area of affiliation and payments. We have the opportunity to show our work and new products, especially vpag, which in addition to being a payment platform is launching the vpag wallet, a solution focused on compliance and legal requirements so that we can, within a perspective of regulation, offer a product aimed at the final consumer and user experience. As a result, players have become very interested in the vpag wallet and vpag flash. In addition to our already traditional affiliate marketing product.
You talk about end user. As president of the Brazilian Sports Betting Association and at the head of an activity that lives the daily life of the gambler, how is usershe – and you as an association – seeing this moment of discussion of match-fixing and the need for regulation?
The very grandeur of BiS shows that it is an industry that already exists in Brazil. I have been in the sector for 15 years and I see the gambler as one of the main stakeholders in good regulation. The government has to collect and the operators must have favorable conditions, but the final consumer, the gambler, is not observed the way he should.
ABAESP emerged in 2019, after Law 13,756 that legalized the activity, to be representative and contribute to the regulatory environment. There is a draft of a provisional measure (PM) that in our point of view is not beneficial either for the government or for the gambler. There is talk of a bill coming from this CPI, which is intended to be propositional. We continue to wait and it is clear that regulation is necessary. The industry has to be regulated, but in the right way, as there is no point in overburdening the operator thinking that in this way we will have a healthy industry because that is not how it works.
In addition, the bettor cannot be the main payer of this account because we will not have an expected channeling rate and the existing market will not migrate to the regulated sector, remaining offshore and nobody will reap positive results.
What do you intend to say in the sports betting CPI, since you are on the guest list to make contributions to the collegiate?
Perhaps ABAESP is one of the few that feel like a positive opportunity precisely because of our practical experience of users and industry experts. We are going to be proactive, along the lines of what we did for the Ministry of Finance, to whom we delivered a booklet on good practices. The idea is to take a little of this so that they listen to us and actually put into practice everything that the market understands as necessary. It will be like this and an opportunity for parliamentarians to listen to us, and for us to be a permanent consultant for all those who want to see the sector working well in Brazil.
Source: Exclusive GMB
