Zona de Azar Portugal – Head of Portugal at LeBull: “The Formula for New Market Entries”
Portugal.- August 09, 2024 www.zonadeazar.com Ahead of the SBC Summit in Lisbon, we spoke to Tiago Pereira, Head of Portugal at LeBull, about the Portuguese market and the vital nature of understanding payment trends when it comes to entering new markets.
Pereira also analysed why it is crucial that operators understand and evaluate the state of new markets before entering them if they are to enjoy success.
CasinoBeats: Can you provide us with more information on the Portugese gambling market and the role of LeBull in the space?
Tiago Pereira: The Portuguese gambling market has been regulated since 2016, for both sports betting and casino. We are considered a highly regulated market with very specific rules and regulations, mainly we do not have all sports and markets available for betting, there is a list of sports and markets provided by the regulator that we are able to offer (no virtual sports or esports permitted at this time) and for casino the main limitation is no live casino permitted at this time, only RNG (random number generated) slots and table games are available. Poker is permitted with shared liquidity between some other european regulated markets.
There are currently 30 licences in Portugal, distributed by 17 operators offering casino, sports betting and poker. In the first quarter of 2024 the market generated €261m in gross revenue, compared to €227m from Q4 2023.
In terms of taxation, on sports betting the market is paying 8% tax on turnover and 25% tax on casino gaming revenue.
Lebull.pt entered the market mid-2023 and in 2024 has taken its activity to another level. We have former Portuguese footballer Luis Figo as a brand ambassador and are working everyday to get our brand recognised as a top player in the market.
CB: How important do you believe it is to have a personalised approach when entering new markets and engaging with new audiences?
TP: When entering new markets it is absolutely necessary to evaluate the current state of the market, evaluate our potential clients and find your own path. While this may seem very generalistic, I believe this is the formula to entering a new market, you need to know the players already present in the market, the market trends and be able to adapt and seek out your own space.
Now, if you are a big enough brand, your strategy might be to just keep doing what you have always been doing, but you are essentially waiting for the market to adapt to your brand and not the other way around. It is a valid strategy, but is it the best?
Sure this might be valid and work above the line, but I do believe that below the line you need to be up close and personal, communicate face to face with your users, and you need to understand the essential difference between one market and another, while catering your social media presence, your tv ads etc. to that. You need to be able to speak their language.
CB: As operators enter and look to gain an advantage in the Brazilian market, what will be the key factors that determine their success in terms of engagement?
TP: The Brazilian market is a very difficult market to decipher, on one side we do share the same language in Portuguese, some customs and even traditions and the same love of futebol. But on the other hand, it is such a big and diverse country and market, to that extent similar to the US, as marketing efforts need to be match the size and differences in the country.
What might seem like a good strategy in São Paulo might not work or translate well in Rio de Janeiro. Again, you need to be able to adapt, have people on the ground as well for constant feedback.
CB: Can you provide us more detail on Google Play’s new regulation and how challenging they could be for gaming operators?
TP: While we are still unaware of how this will affect traditional regulated markets (like Portugal), I do believe Google is playing it safe in closing some markets. In terms of player protection and transparency, of course the safer route is to have all legal and regulated operators in the Play store readily available.
There is also the elephant in the room when we speak about these big marketing conglomerates like Google and Meta, in which they are in a regulated market, and their internal rules overwrite the law… I guess we will have to wait and see what this new regulation will mean in the near future.
CB: When entering a new market, why is it so crucial to have a deep understanding of player trends and have boots on the ground to understand exactly what the local nuances are?
TP: I am a strong believer that (most) markets are impossible to manage with teams outside of the market, you need boots on the ground in order to have the specific knowledge of trends and habits to this market.
If you are doing this abroad, and I am mostly speaking of marketing and support, you are basically using guess work. With the advent of social media content as we see it today this becomes more and more important. You need to be able to speak the specific language of your users.
This becomes even more evident when you are trying to market sports betting to countries that have a passion, the “easy” route is usually promoting the big five European leagues but you are missing out on a massive piece of the pie when it comes to other modalities. When communicating with casinos and you need to make a connection with content, this needs local understanding.
And when you have open support channels it is crucial to have local people answering local customers. A common misunderstanding is that all English is the same, all Spanish is the same, all Portuguese is the same, but most operators have learned the hard way that localisation when a customer is asking for help is crucial.
CB: What do you believe are some of the key technological developments that can lead to success in new markets?
TP: The buzzword at the moment is without a doubt, Artificial Intelligence. We are starting to see AI trickle down into sports betting and casinos and overall it could be very positive for the user experience, especially for new gamblers as they are being presented with what AI believes they want to see.
Machine learning will be, without a doubt, the trend in the next few years in all things IT related. AI will remove the guesswork from CRM and cross selling and everyone is rushing now to be up to date. We just recently implemented an AI engine in our casino homepage at Lebull.pt and are currently testing the results. It monitors gaming activity and presents information on the games based on usage and not just human intuition.
CB: How vital are payment trends to ensuring success is found in new regions and amongst a new group of consumers?
TP: It is essential to be on top of new payment trends when entering a region, mostly for ease of use and confidence for the players. Traditionally in Portugal, as an example, Multibanco and MBWay have been statistically the main channels of payment, but in the past couple of years we have seen an ease of use (mostly in confidence) with mobile specific payments like Google Pay and Apple Pay. This trend indicates that users today are much more likely to trust the same payment method they use for mobile gaming as for gambling, evolving from the traditional payment methods.
CB: Can you tell us more about the importance of the event in Lisbon and holding high level discussions with fellow delegates?
TP: I truly believe SBC Lisbon is going to be a game changing event for our industry, especially in southern europe. This move from Barcelona to Lisbon is a major move for the industry and will put Portugal on the forefront for betting companies.
I have no doubt in a couple of years Lisbon will be consolidated as a gambling industry hub, and we have this massive event in SBC Lisbon to thank for this. We already have some gambling companies choosing portugal for their main and satellite offices and we will see more and more of this as time goes by.
Lisbon has been transformed in the last 10 years into a tech hub and one of the main reasons has been Web Summit and it is impossible to negate the comparison between these two events. In September we will have the opportunity to have industry leaders here in Lisbon, under the same roof talking and shaping the future of our industry, and to me as a “Lisboeta” working in this industry it leaves me immensely proud to have been invited to be a speaker at this event.
Editó: @_fonta www.zonadeazar.com
