KTO founder and CEO Andreas Bardun recently said he intends to gain a 10% share of the Brazilian licensed betting market. He is confident that the group’s hard work and marketing strategies will pay off.
KTO has been operating in Brazil since 2019, when it was launched for the first time in a single country. Its expansion and several regional and national sports sponsorships helped the company to establish itself in the market.
Founder of KTO believes in Brazil’s legalization process
“I believe that everyone should aim to have at least 10% of the market in Brazil in the long term and we aim to be market leaders”, says Bardun.
“We know that we are probably very far from that at the moment, but looking at what we have done in Brazil, because we had a very humble beginning with a very small investment in the business and to be able to compete with the big guys. But we are convinced that we can achieve it”, adds the founder of KTO.
KTO applied for the betting license in July, under the 90-day initial preference window that ended last Tuesday (20). In other words, this means that it will be among the first authorizations granted by the scheduled date of January 1, 2025.
Therefore, Brazil is expected to be an extremely competitive market, with giants such as Betano, Bet365 and Flutter‘s Betfair joining KTO on the list of companies that have applied for a betting license.
KTO invested in targeted sponsorships, such as the partnership with Chapecoense, a team from Series B of the Brazilian Championship.
A study by the Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) predicts that sports betting revenues could reach US$34 billion by 2028. The domestic gross potential is US$2.8 billion
KTO leaves Peru and Chile to focus on Brazil
In July, ENV Media published research on brand recognition and market share of betting brands in Brazil. Thus, this placed KTO as the third most popular and trusted brand for 9.1% of surveyed readers.
ENV analyzed operators’ social media following, website traffic and keyword relevance on Google to determine its results. The data does not take into account real users and active players of the brands researched.
KTO was only behind Betfair (9.5%) and Betano (9.4%) in the survey. So, to reaffirm that it is concentrating all its efforts in Brazil, KTO moved away from Chile and Peru at the beginning of this year.
Bardun believes that the progress the company has made in Brazil puts KTO in a good position for the future, especially amid the recent growth of online casinos:
“[iGaming] is growing and I think it will continue to grow because the Brazilian market is still growing at the moment,” said Bardun.
“The Brazilian market is still learning the game and we can see the growth of online casinos in the last two years. So gaming is now advanced towards the casino, so I think there is a lot more room to grow and mature,” concluded the KTO founder.
