Bobby Longhurst: Peru player data points towards enormous potential

Bobby Longhurst, our Group Chief Commercial Officer, sat down with CasinoBeats after the supplier gained certification to serve the Peruvian online casino and sports betting industry. A new and nascent market, Peru holds a significant opportunity for the industry despite Latin American eyes being fixated on Brazil.

Longhurst outlines how Peruvian players like to “bet big and bet often”, creating an ideal environment for the industry to capitalise on Latin American growth.

What is the significance of entering the Peruvian market for EveryMatrix and how important is it for you to be one of the first companies to be certified there?

We’re delighted to be among the first technology providers to be given accreditation so we can instantly power our customers to gain valuable, early market share.

This is a vital step in further increasing our footprint in LatAm, both as Peru and the wider region continue to regulate. We see huge opportunities across all our product areas including turnkey partnerships that involve multiple EveryMatrix products and services coming together to launch or relaunch operator offerings.

We’ve proven we can deliver large-scale, tier-one technology projects in Europe and are excited at the prospect of replicating this success in Latin America. It’s no secret the LatAm market is gathering speed and we’re determined to be at the forefront of that growth in the months and years ahead.

Latin American observers have been focused on Brazil in the last few months but how big of an opportunity does Peru offer? 

Yes, Brazil has been grabbing all the headlines, mainly due to the size and scale of the opportunity, but Peru has a huge amount to offer and we’ll be focusing a great deal of our efforts there this year and beyond.

Peru’s casino and slot machine market is more than 20 years old so we’re entering an established market with an already high level of awareness, education and appetite for betting and gaming. Combined with new regulation in June 2022, online has boomed there since the pandemic with more than two thirds of gambling focused on digital versus retail.

We fully expect this to grow even quicker following the first wave of regulatory approvals and new local and international brands launching and/or expanding their offerings soon.

What are the key differences to note between the Peruvian player base compared to other LatAm jurisdictions?

We’ve carried out extensive research, particularly in casinos within our SlotMatrix aggregation network – the largest in the industry – and we know that Peruvian players like to bet big and bet often.

Across a 90-day period in the early part of 2024 we found there are 9.5 average sessions per player across the top 20 games in our SlotMatrix network, with 136 bets per session. Activity in Peru also outstrips activity in Colombia (3.63 sessions and 75 bets per session) and Brazil (5.11 and 49.59).

They’re also big spenders compared to their regional LatAm neighbours. The average bet size comes to €1.94 and a fifth of the top 20 titles on SlotMatrix have an average bet of more than €3.

We found that, while free spins are the most common bonus feature within 75 per cent of the games we monitor, Buy Bonus features – found in 55 per cent of titles – boost average bets by 70 per cent.

It is still a very new market with only a few suppliers being certified but what potential do you see in Peru over the next few years? 

Regulated igaming in Peru looks to be just as, if not more, competitive than Brazil so we fully expect the opportunity to be significant. Within 30 days of the enabling laws coming into force, 145 operators pitched for a licence according to the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism (Mincetur).

Mincetur has projected that approximately Sol3.8 billion (€1bn) in bets was placed in 2022 with online gaming and sports betting estimated to produce Sol162 million (€40.6m) a year for the state.

We already have two customers ready to go live, we’re just awaiting further regulatory approvals. The key is that we’re always ready for regulation, we’ve proven this across more than 68 countries already, becoming one of the first to be accredited in each territory and enabling our customers to gain early market share.

Peru and wider LatAm market customers will have access to our entire range of proven, modular revenue-generating technology products. This includes online casino and sportsbook platforms, player account management and sports and esports odds/data feeds.

Our clients can also select from affiliate management and optimisation software and services, gamification, bonus and loyalty features, localised content and aggregation and bespoke safer gambling tools.

What considerations have you made specifically for the Peruvian market and how essential is it to tailor your technology offering for those players? 

Our research has found there are several indications that Peru has huge potential and that, despite a limited supply of games until the market fully opens, players have a huge appetite for slots.

For example, players there place 30 per cent more bets than Romanian players. We expect this to decrease slightly as more slots come on stream, but this still bodes well for the future.

Our research has shown that, unlike their higher ‘thrill-seeking’ Brazilian or Colombian neighbours, Peruvians prefer medium volatility games, however they bet more, and for larger stakes.

Key considerations include content localisation, understanding your players and changes in regulation and player behaviours following these changes.

Content localisation is the foundation to succeeding in a newly regulating and emerging market such as Peru. If we spotlight casino our SlotMatrix experts can advise on selecting the optimum content selection for Peru so that operators preparing to launch can instantly begin to drive revenues and claim valuable early market share.

The second element is understanding players. From what I’ve said so far you can see we’re well ahead of our competitors. You must truly understand player preferences, cultural allegiances and the features and functionalities they love to come back to time and again. For example, did you know that Asian-themed content is found in the top three preferred slot themes of Peruvian players, alongside animals and classic?

Newly regulating markets have a habit of taking unpredictable routes at any given moment so be prepared to alter course. Following a settling-in period, governments and regulators tend to tweak guidance. It’s possible there could be changes to marketing, stake and deposit limits and spin speeds to name just a few.

These changes can also impact player behaviours. In Peru, players may prefer medium volatility games today but this could shift as the market matures, alters regulations and allows more slots and providers to launch thousands more games, features and innovations.

What can readers expect from EveryMatrix in Peru this year

We’re on the verge of going live with our first two customers there so there’s plenty of work ahead including integrating our sports, casino and affiliate technologies. New content will also come thick and fast and we will continue to add and offer many more vendors and games, while also introducing our gamification and bonusing tools and functionality that will enable our customers to get even further ahead of their competitors, including tiered challenges, free spins campaigns and customisable jackpots.

The original version of this interview was published by CasinoBeats.