The young company KTO, operating in the sports betting area for about 4 years, entered the Brazilian market and has been asserting itself every day.
Its betting platform in Brazil is among the most sought after by bettors. With the World Cup in Qatar approaching, it is also preparing to provide the best experience for its users.
Andreas Bardun, CEO and founder of KTO, spoke exclusively with the iGaming Brazil portal about upcoming marketing strategies, expectations for regulation and gave his vision of the Brazilian market.
Check the interview in full.
iGaming Brazil – How long have you been running KTO, Andreas?
Andreas Bardun – We have been running KTO about 4 years and this year we have been active in Brazil for about 3 years.
iGaming Brazil – How do you see the Brazilian sports betting market today, compared to 5 years ago? And how do you see 5 years from now?
Andreas Bardun – There has been a huge increase of interest in Brazilian football and sports in general. I think 5 years ago there wasn’t much focus on Brazilian football because the major sportsbetting companies and odds providers were extremely EURO centric.
We can see now much more interest and localization and focus on Brazilian football, KTO just launched #KTOdds where our Brazilian customers can request customized special odds just for the Brazilian market.
This trend I think will continue over the next 5 years, since Brazilian market will be very big and we will see much more interest in having Brazilian specialized oddscompilers and customized offers catering for the Brazilian market.
This is something KTO is focusing on. We want to be the most localized sportsbetting operator in Brazil.
iGaming Brazil – Do you believe that regulation will happen this year?
Andreas Bardun – This is a very good question, maybe we should offer some odds on it. Joking aside with election upcoming I think it will be difficult. I think it is more likely early 2023 but it has been very unpredictable so far and my guess is as good as anyones.
iGaming Brazil – What changes after bets are released in Brazil?
Andreas Bardun – What will change is transparency, I think regulation will do two things.
Allow operators to be more open with their operations and marketing, more opportunities to create jobs within Brazil. The second and very important thing is that sportsbetting companies will be able to help to reduce some of the negative things that comes with gambling like matchfixing and problem gambling.
On the black market there is no player protection, in regulated market we can help protect the consumers in cooperation with the regulator.
This is why it is so important that the regulation is not creating to high taxation, because that would create a big black market
We need to find a good regulation so it is a win win situation where operators can operate legally, consumers be protected and the government take out some taxes.
iGaming Brazil – Do Brazilians have a different profile from the rest of the world? What is the profile of the Brazilian player?
Andreas Bardun – One thing that stand out to me is how heavy football betting is, not many other sports matters, I would say most other countries at least 2-3 alternative sports but in Brazil it is all about football.
Otherwise Brazil is not as mature market as other regulated market and we see more pre-match action and combination bets compared to UK as an example.
iGaming Brazil – How are KTO’s preparations for the World Cup going?
Andreas Bardun – It’s going really well, we are currently focus on 2 things:
1. Scaling up in operations, we are already growing at an insane rate and if history taught me something World Cup will boost the growth to another level. We always aim to give our players support and pay out their winning at shortest possible time so we need to scale up to support this.
2. We are working on a very (Still secret) campaign for the World Cup that should peak everyone’s interest.
iGaming Brazil – What are the new marketing strategies and solutions to improve player acquisition in the Brazilian market?
Andreas Bardun – I think regulation will help with this. I think it is important to have boots on the ground, be next to our customers, be local and be relevant. I think Brazil is a very nice but complicated country, I think building a brand with trust is going to be important. I think trust is everything, we focus a lot on trust and give back to the Brazilian society.
