Primed for Peru

In an interview for Intergaming and Intergamingi magazines, Bobby Longhurst, our Group Chief Commercial Officer, talked about our company making its mark on Peru.

Brazil has been grabbing all the headlines due to the size and scale of the opportunity, but regulated iGaming in Peru looks to be just as, if not more, competitive. We fully expect the opportunity to be significant.

Within 30 days of the enabling laws coming into force, 145 operators pitched for a license according to the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism (Mincetur). Mincetur has projected that approximately PEN3.8bn (€948m) in bets was placed in 2022, with online gaming and sports betting estimated to produce PEN162m (€40.4m) per year for the state.

Peru’s casino and slot machine market is more than 20 years old, so one of the most exciting aspects of this is that we’re entering an established territory 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 post-pandemic, with more than two-thirds of gambling focused on digital versus retail. We expect this to accelerate following the first wave of regulatory approvals and new local and international brands launching and/or expanding their offerings soon.

We were among the first technology providers to be given accreditation earlier this year, 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, as both Peru and the wider region continue to regulate.

We have an initial two customers ready to go live there pending regulatory approval. The key is that we’re always ready for regulation; we’ve proven this across more than 70 countries already, becoming one of the first to be accredited in each territory and enabling our customers to gain early market share.

Expanding the ecosystem

We’ve been active in multiple markets across LatAm for several years, with casino content aggregation a highly successful area. We’re focusing on expanding that this year and beyond by supplying local operators and lotteries with a range of our modular digital and omnichannel technologies.

We see huge opportunities across all our products, in particular turnkey partnerships that involve multiple EveryMatrix products and services connecting 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. Brazil, Mexico, and Peru are high on our priority list this year, and we will be working closely with regulators and test labs to ensure our services are ready and fully compliant. One of the highlights is that we’re already there in Peru.

Later this year we’ll also open a regional EveryMatrix LatAm office with localized account management to service clients on the ground. This will be a big part of further establishing EveryMatrix in LatAm.

Having a local presence is essential and something that’s often an afterthought for other B2B iGaming providers. It’s an area we’re determined to fill. We’ve done this successfully elsewhere, so we don’t expect this to be any different.

LATAM PREPARATION CRUCIAL
We’re pushing hard with commercial efforts, exhibiting and speaking at key events, and meeting all the relevant stakeholders, regulators, tier-one local operators, and other suppliers in each strategic market.

There are many areas that separate us from our competitors, and you will see this shine through in the months and years to come across LatAm. Many providers talk about regulation and their excitement for Brazil and other LatAm markets, but the majority are simply not ready.

The key with any rapidly regulating market is to be fully ready for regulation, which we very much are. We’re ready thanks to a dedicated compliance team as well as, from a safer gambling perspective, becoming the first iGaming supplier to gain safer gambling certification from the World Lottery Association.

Others will not be so fortunate, and we fully expect to see both incumbent sports betting and casino platform and product providers fall away as regulation catches up with them.

This shock will happen in two main ways: financially because of high tax rates across both winnings and GGR that will force some companies to exit, and due to legacy product(s) simply not being up to scratch. Many platforms don’t possess the technical capabilities to scale that we do — and that we’ve repeatedly proven. They are already struggling to handle volume, leading to poor performance and missed opportunities. EveryMatrix, on the other hand, is fully compliant and operational with many clients already live, growing month-on-month, with others waiting to launch.

Agility and anticipation

Many aspects of newly regulating markets are challenging, but only if you don’t plan for and adhere to them. Follow all the guidance and work closely with the regulator but be equally prepared for the unexpected as legislation has a habit of rapidly changing.

There are some common ‘must-haves,’ including the ability to absorb license and taxation costs; ensuring your tech is fully scalable to cater for large volumes of traffic and flexible enough to provide localized content to LatAm players’ specific needs; ensuring you’ve done your research on what players in different LatAm countries enjoy and want to play, what bet types they bet on most, what themes, volatility levels, and in-game features; and installing adaptable safer gambling measures or tools that can be launched quickly and are proven to make a lasting impact.

The opportunities are huge, and we’re ready to step in both to launch new digital brands across sports and casino, and to help brands struggling because of legacy technology that simply isn’t fit for purpose for many of the individual LatAm markets.

Turning heads

We expect to play a significant role in the region’s online gaming growth; we’re the industry’s largest aggregator and will continue to develop our partnership offering, growing it across LatAm with the best-performing localized content.

Our proven casino/sportsbook turnkey performance in Europe is turning heads, and we have several operators interested in discussing opportunities for wider, long-term collaboration.

Our affiliate platform management business, now with the added integration of DeepCI data tracking that enables brands and affiliates to immediately identify how their performance on any site in the world is going, will be a game-changer there.

The original version of this article was published by Intergaming and Intergaming Magazine.