Brazil is taking great strides towards regulating betting and the topic of the moment is market consolidation. Global industry giants have already signaled that they will make large investments in Brazil after the regulation.
In this context, the expectation is that companies like Flutter and Entain will make acquisitions of “local heroes” and that operators that choose not to be acquired will join forces with other large and medium-sized players to form conglomerates with the firepower to compete for the market with the giants.
In short, it is expected that of the hundreds of betting houses that currently operate in Brazil, there will be less than a dozen left that truly dominate the market share. In other countries, consolidation has designed the market in such a way that the 5 largest operators together take more than 80% of the market, often leaving less than 20% for all other players.
With this scenario announced, some new concerns have been taking shape among current Brazilian players.
It is currently estimated that the current number of bettors in Brazil has already exceeded 40 million. Just over a year ago, this number was an estimate of the total size of bettors there should be in Brazil. This means that the cost of acquiring new users should become even more expensive.
In this context, operators begin to give more importance to player retention efforts and base reactivation. And the main question is what to do beyond the trivial that is not very efficient.
The use of CRM and the offering of benefits such as free spins and bonuses for new bets are a “must have”, however the efficiency of these actions alone does not generate the necessary impacts. After all, competitors are also doing the same thing.
Juliano Fontes, CEO of Appost — one of the best-ranked scoring, tips and content apps on Google Play — analyzes that, as in other more mature markets, the key to player retention and reactivation of the base is engagement.
“We here at Appost are always creating features to decommoditize the betting market. There’s no point in just offering more of the same. Whether sportsbook or casino, the games are always the same in all houses. The bonuses are similar, fast withdrawal, support, marketing actions, data, statistics… all the houses are very similar for the player… none of that is different anymore. The betting market is extremely commoditized. The question is what can you do with the data, with the information. How to educate and present your house and this world of betting to players. How will you accompany them on a daily basis… when they want to have fun. In other words, what experience are you going to offer? That’s what makes the user stay.”
For Fontes, the battle for the next user is coming to an end. The battle is now for the user’s next bet. “Exclusive services focused on engagement, such as apps that offer more than scores, are the most strategic moves at this time for operators. Even more so in this window of time while some of the world’s giants are still not in the ring. With few actions in the right direction, the results tend to be very significant. Many operations have millions of inactive users on their database and the time spent on a new user is increasingly shorter. A better experience generates great impacts because it is more difficult to copy (…) even more so with the market full of operators who do not own the betting technology itself. How will they differentiate themselves?”
There are many points necessary for a player to be among the big players after market consolidation. Market share, acquisition cost, retention, turnover, financial efficiency, LTV, technology and positioning are some of the most cited by market experts.
