As we come to the close of digital gaming events, virtual sports dominates Portuguese and English poll with 50% and 44% of viewers respectively voting for it

To start off the day LatAm market Operations Manager of Betcontstruct? Agapi Abroyan introduced the LatAm history of Betconstruct and explained the fantastic relationship the company has established with the country. She then moved on to the effects of technology and how mobile phones have facilitated the access for the player to the industry and so naturally she addressed the arising urgency to cater for the specific needs of the different types of customers that are always increasing, saying how by establishing a good relationship with them the customers will remain loyal to them.?

Once football was addressed,?the following talk?was specifically going beyond the latter sport and seeing how the relationship between Brazil and other sports is developing, seeing as there is great potential in Ultimate?Fighting?Champion, basketball, volleyball, e-sports and?Formula?One.?Commercial Director of?Altenar?Domenico Mazzola emphasized that it is key to create a “packaged journey”, tending to the needs of the player from?the registration point to the playing, and understanding what can be improved, with special attention to what would be the new local players.?One of the closing points of the panel was the rising interest in e-sports again with some of the speakers mentioning promising statistics of the past year which just increase the level of potential of this aspect of gaming.??

Complementing the points made on 2020 by the?preceding?speakers, the?third?panel addressed?the acceleration of?online gaming due to the COVID pandemic, whilst also recognizing the?LatAm?is still in a developing process in reaching the European standards when it comes to gaming,?naturally?because it is still in its nativity. Eddie Morales of?BetGames.TV?added that due to these complications in legislation and regulations, Latin Americans weren’t taken that seriously, but?that after seeing the local statistics of online gaming, and again the rise of e-sports,?things will definitely change as he said

 

Covid has been the last wake up call to the acceleration of the industry in Latin America.’

The fourth?panel’s recurring point was the importance of looking at?LatAm?not as a market but as a continent?with many countries?that have different cultures, economies, individual behaviour and nuances, which will in return?respond differently to?any one?strategy?that’s imposed on them.?The following point was naturally the familiarization of the?industry?with?the locals seeing as in creating thousands of jobs, one would need to introduce some sort of training and development program, not only to educate the people involved but to?help in the localisation of the industry and introduce?its identity with?that of the local culture.??

Following this, Director?Berois gave a speech on the developing market in LatAm, the effects of the? pandemic and the always urgent necessity to keep up with the times and consider the ever-shifting generations of clients and cater to their liking accordingly to include all demographics.?Berois also included how apart from the usual popularity of sports,

as we’ve seen during this pandemic, online games have become very important because they’ve become a part of entertainment.’

The natural continuation to dealing with the localisation is the issue of marketing, and so the succeeding panel started by discussing what attracts the customer, focusing on the reality that sports is huge in Latin America. The speakers agreed that there?have?been a boost in traffic but that at the same time, the pandemic did create some hindrances, especially seeing how it affected the sports market, which after all remains the strongest in LatAm?for the moment.?E-Sports came up once again since it is slowly rising in popularity, it was brought to attention that there should be?more?focus on this sector when it comes to marketing products.?

The tie between marketing and social media was then addressed in the sixth?panel, where the importance of Facebook, Instagram and?Whatsapp?was addressed. Examples were discussed where the speakers emphasized the value of tools on Facebook that assist a marketing team with understanding different groups of different demographics, whilst also serving as a great sport streaming platform which allows players and fans to join in?and enjoy the spectacle together.?Essentially the combination of social media and the ability to stream, from a sports match, to e-sports, to even casino games, creates a venue of high potential for anyone operating in the market.?

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As we put the whole issue of marketing and marketing tools under a microscope, the issues of payments in?LatAm?rises, which is just what the penultimate panel discussed next. The main issue here that was brought up?is that in comparison to Europe, Latin American countries don’t have the same cross-border relations and so?even though things are slowly improving,?there are?still?certain problems that arise when it comes to using?the more common?methods such as?Visa or MasterCard. The panel then went on to elaborate on several?LatAm?countries’ popular methods of payments which all vary and so this is definitely an issue that needs to be overcome for the sake of consistency for the companies operating in the region.??

To conclude the summit, the speakers re-addressed the importance of?distinguishing the countries of the?continent?from each other, and from there moved on to discussing which?games and platforms?tend to be more popular in which country, proving?discussing?technologies that are essential to the localisation of operators in?LatAm?is?a very vast issue?and?that?each country has to be given its studious attention.?The ongoing repetition of this point?says a lot about the cultures of?LatAm?and it?will?definitely remain one of the most valuable pieces of information in the upcoming years of localisation.?

Today we also asked you whether you think gambling legislation will help lift Brazil out of the economic strife and the votes were split 50/50 between Yes and Somewhat, whilst on the other hand when we asked you what you think are the biggest challenges the Latin American gaming market is facing in 2020, the votes were also 50/50 between Covid-19 and Political Instability.

The last event of the day was SiGMA’s annual poker tournament hosted by EvenBet Gaming, featuring SiGMA founder, Eman Pulis playing with a €100 bounty on his head, alongside 5 SiGMA Squad team members.

This was the last gaming event on SiGMA’s 2020 gaming calendar, before 2021 brings a fresh round of global events with SiGMA Europe, SiGMA Asia, and SiGMA Africa in 2022.

About SiGMA Europe – Malta

SiGMA Group has announced the postponement of its Europe summit, which was planned to be held in Malta on 17-19 November 2020. The show will now open its doors early next year in February, running from the 16-18th, making it the first event to headline the 2021 gaming calendar.