Tor Skeie, CEO at OddsMatrix, shares insights with SBC News on adopting a winning strategy for Brazil’s regulated market beginning January 1. In this first installment of a series, Skeie explores the Brazilian audience’s appetite for entertainment in their betting and gaming experiences.
Part 1: Entertainment
Image: OddsMatrix
The Brazilian igaming and sports betting market is preparing to transition to a regulated landscape in two months.
For the past seven years, the regulation of Brazil’s gambling market has been a hot topic in the industry. With January 2025 approaching, it is becoming a reality with over 110 betting operators getting ready to enter a market of more than 200 million adults, 70% of whom are under the age of 30.
Much has been said about Brazil’s potential $10 billion+ market within four years, but often without focusing on the most important aspect: the players. Understanding their current betting experiences, preferences, and behaviors is crucial, yet no detailed feature gap analysis has been conducted—until now.
At EveryMatrix, we’re always proud to say we’re ready for regulation and we’ll ensure our clients are as well. But we recognize not everyone is prepared. In collaboration with ENV Media, we conducted a comprehensive player behavior survey with over 1,800 sports bettors across Brazil.
Our findings will be presented across six key themes: Entertainment, localization, brand & loyalty, coverage, features, and cross-sell.
The insights suggest that Brazil offers tremendous potential, but it’s still early in its transformative journey, characterized by rapid growth and evolving regulatory changes aimed at modernizing the sector and addressing concerns about gambling’s impact on individuals and the economy.
For those ready to hit the ‘go live’ button, this series will be essential reading.
Our initial analysis focuses on ‘Entertainment,’ digging into how familiar Brazilian players are with online betting, the ways they discover platforms, their habits, and preferences, including favored sports, leagues, teams, and bet types. Here’s what we uncovered.
A large, young, connected audience who knows what they want
Brazilian sports bettors are ahead of the curve for a soon-to-be-regulated market. They are sports enthusiasts, a passion that is likely to further intensify in a formalized betting environment.
These bettors are already active online, primarily through mobile devices, and consume entertainment more sophisticatedly than many countries, with social media and streaming being prevalent.
Social media (49% of respondents selected it as the top choice from a ‘select all that apply’ list) and online ads (47%) are the most popular discovery channels for online betting in Brazil.
More than two-thirds (66%) engage with betting content on mainstream social media such as Instagram, Facebook, and X, while 33% use messenger apps like Telegram and WhatsApp, and 31% enjoy short-form videos on platforms like YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, and Kwai.
Over half (51%) expect live-streaming games directly from operator sites as a means to consume content, followed by real-time stats and analysis (42%). This suggests the upcoming audience will be savvy bettors eager for live, relevant, low-latency, on-demand content.
These players want more than just betting options; they seek fast access to accurate, informative data and content. Consequently, providing live streaming and dynamic promotions could hold great commercial promise in Brazil, as these features are known to boost user engagement significantly.
The key betting drivers in Brazil
Unsurprisingly, a majority (77%) cite “earning money” as their primary motivation for betting, yet 47% also indicate entertainment, reflecting a balance between financial incentive and fun.
While Brazilians are expected to bet on domestic leagues and beloved footballers in their iconic gold and blue, the reality is more global. The betting world is increasingly international, and this savvy audience reflects that complexity.
Overall, nearly half of players (43%) are influenced by their favorite teams or competitions, with team sponsorships and partnerships enhancing brand loyalty and attracting dedicated fans through team-specific promotions.
The most popular sports betting leagues include the Brazilian Serie A (71% as a first choice), Champions League (48%), Football World Cup (40%), and Copa America (38%), with NBA basketball (21%) and NFL American football (11%) among the fastest-growing.
Internationally, Serie A (56%), the Spanish La Liga (44%), and English Premier League (44%) lead, followed by growing interest in the Women’s Brazilian championship (28%), Brazilian volleyball super league (24%), and National Futsal league (17%).
Forty percent of players bet equally on international and local games, with nearly half (49%) valuing localization highly, indicating that localized themes and markets enhance engagement, while localized content and promotions attract regular users.
Almost 60% deem it ‘important’ or ‘very important’ to have good betting options on niche Brazilian sports like beach soccer or volleyball. Localized bonuses and promotions (60%) and live Portuguese-language games (49%) are top preferences for bettors.
The quality of football (59%) and betting opportunities (42%) are the main motivators for following international events, while challenges include time zone differences (44%) and lack of information (39%).
Although time zones can’t be changed, providing more information, data, and access to international competitions, especially football, could be crucial for attracting customers in January.
[*Data provided is from 1,800 regular sports betting players across Brazil. Totals may exceed 100% due to multiple-choice questions allowing a “select all that apply” response]
OddsMatrix – bridging the entertainment gap:
Our research revealed Brazil’s existing betting and gaming industry, despite its growth and potential, has notable gaps between demand and supply. While new regulations will significantly shape the industry, several areas need attention to fully harness its potential.
Players seek:
Improved platform performance and reliability, with a focus on speed and customer support
Enhanced personalized and localized content tailored to their preferences
Better payment systems with more options and increased security
Expanded mobile-specific features and optimized user interfaces for mobile devices
OddsMatrix addresses these concerns and more. If entertainment is what Brazilian players desire, our modular platform, software, and data feed services deliver in abundance.
We cover over 100 sports, offering more than 530,000 sportsbook events in Q3 2024 alone.
We provide industry-leading 1,000+ pre-match markets for English Premier League matches, significantly exceeding the median of 293 across tier-one operators.
Eleven of our sports are available through BetBuilder, including pre-live and live options for football, tennis, basketball, and more.
Did you know?
OddsMatrix offers more live football matches than any other operator or supplier worldwide. From October 2023 to September 2024, we offered 137,260 live matches across 2,923 competitions.