Cartola, a famous fantasy game based on the performance of players from teams participating in the Brazilian Championship, presented a novelty for its audience. With the beginning of the Brasileirão 2022, the game gained a new version: Cartola Express. Remembering that the new platform is only accessible to people aged 18 or over.
Cartola Express offers contests, with a registration fee ranging from R$0.50 to R$500. In the most relevant of them, the champion can take R$100,000 by investing only R$10, which reinforces the importance of study and dedication to analyze well the lineups in search of the prizes.
Therefore, the cardholder must outline strategies in the most varied models of disputes, testing his ability and knowledge about football. And, no less than the top 8,500 finishers – out of a total of nearly 39,000 competitors – will be rewarded with some value.
To unravel all the secrets of the new version of the game, iGaming Brazil spoke exclusively with Cartola Express ambassador, Carol Bernardi. At 42 years old, she is fully dedicated to the gaming platform with the creation of content for social networks and her YouTube channel.
This year, she signed a partnership to act as an ambassador for the new version of Cartola. Carol explained the main differences between the classic game and Cartola Express, gave tips to the cartholders on duty and mentioned how her work can encourage other women to join both the game and football itself.
Check out the exclusive interview with Cartola Express ambassador, Carol Bernardi
iGaming Brazil: Could you make a short presentation?
Carol Bernardi: I’m 42 years old, today I’m a top keeper by profession, officially a top keeper (laughs) and a commentator on the daily program ‘De Olho no Peixe’, but that didn’t start that long ago. I was a regular Cartola player when in 2019 Caio Ribeiro convinced me to open a channel, and today I really take it as a profession.
I breathe Cartola FC, I have a Youtube channel that talks only about Cartola and this year I became an official ambassador for Cartola Express, an arm of the game that works in a different way, but that you can be profitable with it, so I’m very excited with this 2022 season, there’s a lot of work ahead.
iGaming Brazil: How did you start your partnership with the fantasy game Cartola Express and what kind of actions have you developed as an ambassador for the game?
Carol Bernardi: In fact, the partnership as an ambassador started this year, I was always called for lives, interviews and participation as an influencer of Cartola (the classic), but officially as a partner of the game, it was now in 2022 with the proposal to be an ambassador for Cartola Express.
In addition to the launch campaign with the pieces on open and closed channels, OOH boost and internet, we are opening lives, with explanation about the game, lineup tips, since it is totally different from the classic Cartola, and here in Brazil there is no custom of playing this type of game, to be profitable, worth money and the best, earning money fast.
So, we have to teach people properly so that they don’t give up halfway through lack of information. We produce content weekly calling the audience to the game and we are, the 10 influencers and ambassadors of Express, participating in a dispute this season with a prize at the end.
iGaming Brazil: Are your activities as an ambassador for Cartola Express directly linked to Santos, your favorite team? Are they aimed at the fans of Peixe or at a general public?
Carol Bernardi: No, and I can’t! (laughs). When I wasn’t an influencer, I even let emotion speak louder and when climbing my team was very club-friendly. Since I started working with this, I understood that I could no longer be a club player, so depending on the phase that Santos is going through, which lately has not been so good, if he is going to play with a stronger team, I will select players from the other team.
I share a lot of information about Santos, due to working with the club, more in case someone wants to select a player. For example, in the 2020 season when Marinho was flying and there was no way to leave him out of the team, I would climb him and they already called me a club player, so I try to minimize and separate Santos from Cartola.
iGaming Brazil: What are the main differences that you would point out between Cartola’s old format and Cartola Express?
Carol Bernardi: It’s not just the main differences, but the games are completely different, the dynamics and the objective are different. While in Clásico, at the beginning of each season you need to value your players, build up a heritage to have a greater number of Cartoletas, there in Express you will always have 140 cards to start the team, this never changes, we suppose I was bad in a certain round , in the next one you will continue to have 140 cards and in the Classic you start the season with 100 cards and your player loses value, you end up losing a lot and can’t assemble a competitive team.
The Clássico leagues are monthly, for the Brasileirão period (1st and 2nd round) or for the entire championship, so it takes a long time to know if your league won or went well. While on the Express it’s per round, so if it was bad on this one, let’s go to the next one that can go well. So, if you’re a cardholder who forgets or doesn’t have time to climb every round, it’s preferable to play in the Express, which is valid only for that round, being able to skip rounds without interfering with your result, as it is in the classic.
Another difference is also the closing time of the market, which in the classic closes 30 minutes before the first game of the round and in the Express it only closes one minute before the game starts, you always have the lineup in hand to be able to change your players
iGaming Brazil: What tips could you give to Cartoleiros who are getting ready for the start of the Brazilian Championship?
Carol Bernardi: The tip doesn’t have much of a secret, if you don’t get at least an hour to study the round, see data and participate in groups with tips, don’t get into very high leagues, because the probability of losing is high, the classic Cartola it requires consistency in the score, so it’s worth doing 120 today and 60 in the next round, better to do 80 every round, you may not be able to repeat it in all of them, but you’ll be maintaining consistency.
And it does need to be studied, Cartola is not luck, studies are needed, probabilities, statistics, of course football is not an exact science, you can’t take it to the letter, but you have to take the statistics part seriously, in my VIP group of subscribers, we even study the referees issue, if there are a lot of penalties and/or cards, if the VAR is usually triggered. So that’s it, Cartola is not luck, of course it has a small percentage of luck, but it’s much more statistics and probability.
iGaming Brazil: Historically, women are the majority among the gaming community in Brazil. In a 2021 survey, 51.5% of the country’s electronic game audience is female. This strong presence is related to the size of the smartphone market, where there is a predominance of women (62.2%). And, do you think that your performance as an ambassador for a traditional crowd like Santos in a game of reach like Cartola helps to increase these numbers even more, both in games and in football?
Carol Bernardi: Not just the Santista fans. Since I opened the channel, a greater number of women started to follow me, to subscribe to my channel, to send me messages that they started playing for a joke, several times they go well in the round, and that because of me and the my tips keep playing.
I believe that the woman is more careful, I see from my parents, if my mother sees that the market closes tomorrow, she sits down, studies, analyzes the best option for her and scales everything right; my father, on the other hand, goes with what he has in his hand, what he thinks is going well, and people’s mistake is to think that if the player is good on the field, he is good for Cartola, and it’s not always like that, there are several cases of players who are good on the field, but very bad for Cartola and vice versa too, because what defines SCOUTS, tackles, fouls suffered, fouls committed, defenses, so all this adds to the score.
Anyway, women are more careful and I believe that because I am a woman talking about a subject that is predominantly more common among men, and still have a prominent place, I end up influencing their presence not only in the game, but also in the football too.
