During the EGR Latam Power Summit (eGaming Review), held on February 28th and March 1st in Buenos Aires, the iGaming Brazil portal interviewed the Brazilian business panelists present at the event. During two days of highly exclusive networking for leaders of the igaming market in Latin America, businessmen had the opportunity to discuss issues sensitive to the industry.
“The 2022 World Cup: reflections on the challenges and successes of Latin American sports betting at a crucial moment”- was the theme of the panel presented and moderated by Fellipe Fraga- Business Director at Estrelabet, which was attended by the guests Javier Troncoso – CCO at Futbol Sites, Gabriel Szlaifsztein, Latam Sales Director at Continent 8 Technologies, Javier Samel, Regional Director for Argentina at Pragmatic Play, and Santiago Gandara, CMO at Betwarrior.
Football fans in Latin America are known to be some of the most passionate in the world, and with the ever-increasing opportunity to legally engage in sports betting across multiple jurisdictions, the 2022 World Cup provided an extremely valuable opportunity for the industry.
This panel discussed perspectives on how the tournament was experienced in the Latin American market, challenges to ensure player protection, testing for platform infrastructures, marketing strategy and how an exclusively scheduled event affected behavior and player traffic.
See the full interview with Estrelabet’s Business Director.
iGaming Brazil – How is this event here at the Hilton going for you and Estrelabet?
Fellipe Fraga – It is a very interesting opportunity for us. I received an invitation from the organization to represent the company as a speaker (speaker) and it is always a nice opportunity to meet people who are part of the industry in the Latin American market, to discuss ways for the market to move forward, of the entire structure of iGaming grow in Latin America. The panels have been interesting talking about regulation and it’s always good to see friends who always participate and, of course, to do new business that arises.
iGaming Brazil – What is the importance of the EGR Power Summit in the sports betting market?
Fellipe Fraga – The importance is the fact that it is a slightly more selective event. And with that, the conversations are also more efficient than in other events where, despite being very important, we are not always able to focus our time on conversations with decision-making power in companies or that are able to see business opportunities in a more adequate way. With a reduced event, this is easier to happen. So it has been very interesting, in addition to the guidelines that are raised, they are very interesting.
iGaming Brazil – What is your conclusion about the World Cup panel and your reflections on the challenges and successes of sports betting?
Fellipe Fraga – I was moderator and it was challenging because in addition to making a panel in Spanish with three Argentineans and a Chilean who lives in Mexico, it had people from different facets of the industry, so we had and Continet8, with Gabriel Szlaifsztein, who works with technology, protection and software structure, Javier Troncoso from Futbol Sites with affiliation and customer acquisition, Javier Samel, from Pragmatic Play, which is a Casino and Santiago García (Gandara) from Betwarrior, which is an operator, so all that was missing was having a participating platform.
We were able to have an interesting look at how the World Cup impacted the industry in every detail, in each sector that makes up igaming in Latin America, especially the Argentine side that reached the final and were world champions. That’s why it was nice to have this conversation with them, it was like a conversation between friends and it seems that the result was positive: they loosened up in the conversation, one helping the other in the participation, I left happy.
iGaming Brazil – As an operator, how do you see the entry of government sites in the sports betting market?
Fellipe Fraga – It is a complicated issue because, while the Government makes it clear that betting is not a bad thing, the Government gives its own endorsement, in the case of Minas Gerais, Lotominas.bet was launched this week.
As if Minas Gerais were saying to the market and to the citizens of Minas Gerais that betting is legal. At the same time we face competition with the State itself. He is the one who will determine the payment of taxes, and everything else, and I will compete with someone who will not suffer the same consequences of the activity itself when the activity is regulated.
Of course, we are interested in being in the whole country, the direction of the Curaçao company is that Estrelabet in fact becomes a fully licensed company in Brazil as well. It concerns me in a way.
It will be interesting as long as the Brazilian State as a whole, and each federative unit, manages to establish equal conditions for this competition. You have to be loyal. Monopoly is never interesting.
The Estado de Minas (Lotominas) made an interesting choice, the site is well done, it has some creative things that I didn’t expect so much, but it remains to be seen how this will be worked with the Brazilian legislation.
iGaming Brazil– Estrelabet is getting stronger working its marketing, even with you always participating in events around the world. What news can you tell us?
Fellipe Fraga – Participation in events has often been conditioned to legal opportunities and interesting invitations that I have happily received. It’s the result of the work we’ve been doing, working on the brand as a whole, and Estrela continues to grow. We look forward to having a very successful 2023. We don’t have any big news related to football clubs, none of that, at least for now, but I believe that news of new partnerships will emerge (I can’t give much detail), but we believe that in 2023 we will be able to multiply our numbers even more more.
