As sports betting goes from strength to strength in Latin America, operators need to hone their offerings to attract and retain customers in an increasingly competitive market.

Brazil, the region’s largest market, regulated in January 2025, a year after Peru, while Colombia and Panama operate as more mature markets today. In countries like Mexico, Argentina and Chile, the situation is more complex with provincial regulations or reforming laws coming into play, while the debate over online gambling regulation still rages on in Uruguay.

Regardless, people are betting en masse and according to Delasport, LatAm’s online gambling sector will see a compound annual growth rate of 18.4% between 2022 and 2028. To stand out from the crowd in this dynamic environment, engagement features are vital to keep players’ attention on any given sportsbook.

Change of direction

The industry is moving away from simple, transactional betting experiences and towards more entertainment-led ones. Hugo Baungartner, chief business officer of Grupo Esportes Gaming Brasil, and a LatAm gambling industry veteran with nearly 30 years experience across Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile and Mexico, has seen plenty of change in recent years.

He explains: “LatAm shifted from bonus-led engagement, to experience-led engagement, mobile, in-play, richer markets and content inside the bet flow. The competition matured. Payment speed and trust became the real engagement lever with personalisation replacing generic promos.

“Sports betting has become ‘watch and interact’ via trackers, streamers, and richer narratives. But transactional excellence remains the foundation. If payouts fail, the entertainment layer won’t matter, so I think trust is very important. We have to make sure the trust is the main connection between operator and client.”

Biggest LatAm sports betting markets

Brazil is by far the biggest market in LatAm, followed by Mexico and Argentina. This is based on sports betting GGR market share in 2026.

• Brazil38.8%
• Mexico20.7%
• Argentina13.2%
• Peru4.7%
• Colombia4.5%
• Chile3%
• Uruguay1.3%
• Puerto Rico0.8%
• Panama0.5%
• Other LatAm nations12.6%

Data courtesy of H2 Gambling Capital.

Tom Santos, chief commercial officer of Brazilian operator Bet Da Sorte, a brand that has been running a lottery since the 1990s before recently branching out into both sports betting and casino, also agrees that operators need to shift the focus away from the basics. “Today, we’re not just a casino brand or a sportsbook brand,” he tells iGB. “We’re a content company, doing things on Instagram that big TV companies are doing. We’re sending people to games in the World Cup and in Europe.

This change of direction isn’t all-encompassing though, with plenty of bettors still interested in the more traditional, transactional sportsbook experience. Ramiro Atucha, CEO of Atucha Strategic Advisory and an experienced entrepreneur in the gambling space, highlights this difference: “You have two different types of gamblers, right? The ones that like to be entertained and the ones that like more of a transactional experience. [Similarly] with slots, you have the high volatility for the players that are more transactional and accelerated spins because they want to know the outcome [quickly]. And ones that want to be entertained will have the lower volatility games.

“In terms of sports betting, it is the same. You can have streaming, you can have in-play for people that like to watch the game and continue to bet. And the ones that just want to do it transactionally too, right? Both need to be supported.”

An evolving betting landscape

There’s no doubt online betting has evolved in Latin America over the decade since Colombia became the first nation in the region to formally legalise it in 2016. And Atucha, who previously founded suppliers Vibra Gaming and games studio Leander Games, thinks operators need to appreciate that and understand the nuances of different countries to succeed.

“At the beginning, sports betting needed to be very simple. But eventually, when different elements like combined bets came along and streamers helped people understand that – it began to grow,” he says.

“It’s more a matter of understanding the type of sports that bettors are more interested in. It’s very different what you’re going to offer in Puerto Rico, where baseball is huge and basketball is huge, versus Argentina, where football is king but you also have rugby and different things. And then you have different types of bets…”

Indeed, different bet types are among the most straightforward but successful ways of increasing engagement and providing more reasons for a bettor to return to a platform again and again.

Finding the right balance

Christophe Casanova, CEO and founder of Honore Gaming, a sportsbook platform provider that has recently branched out into Central America, says how specific bet types on football markets, including number of corners and shots on target are “appreciated” by customers, along with the ubiquitous bet builders.

Casanova also believes loyalty programmes are now “mandatory” for all sportsbooks, citing crypto sportsbooks as leading the way and a source of inspiration when it comes to these.

He adds: “Being a specialist of emerging markets, we always need to think about whether a given feature would apply to the specific market, because the people may be less educated in terms of betting knowledge. We need to find the right balance between complexity, innovation and how it could apply to our markets.”

Need for speed

Santos believes fast payouts, live betting tools, personalised offers, cash-out features, and gamifications are all important for engagement. “Anything that shortens the time between intent, the bet, and the rewards is what players want. They want to act fast.

“There are two types of market. There’s the pre-live, and then there’s live. You can engage players and bring new players for the pre-live, but for the live events, you need to have a very good structure for the player to do what he wants. If you don’t have the correct timings and actions, the player’s going to move [to a different sportsbook].”

Atucha names a few different engagement features among those he considers most effective, some are more acquisition-based, like welcome bonuses, odds boosts and early payouts. “Early payouts are key, and free bet campaigns. In terms of engaging through in-play betting UX, cash-outs and push notifications make a strong difference. Everyone’s very competitive and there are lots of bragging rights within sports betting, so leaderboards and tournaments are also key.

“The biggest impact I’ve seen was when we implemented early payouts, or insured bets, because these are elements that give the player a lot of comfort. And normally, whoever does an early payout, a big percentage of them will bet it again. So it is a significant booster,” Atucha recalls.

Building from a solid base

For engagement features to work effectively, though, a sportsbook platform needs solid foundations. Atucha explains: “The platform needs to be stable and responsive. It needs to be able to work with different feeds, not just use Genius Sports or Sportradar. Especially if we’re talking in the Caribbean, where there are some very specific sports that are not necessarily covered by the mainstream data feeds.

For Atucha, another very important aspect is how an operator manages risk. He believes they need real-time monitoring and players properly categorised, “so that you do not block the wrong bets to the wrong player and frustrate him to go somewhere else,” he notes. “There needs to be a real-time analysis and even a counter offer to avoid frustrating a player that cannot place a bet.”

“Pricing is also key. If you are trying to make your profit on the Champions League games, you’re going to have less competitive odds than others and lose players. You need to be very competitive there to attract the players, and then you can be a bit less competitive elsewhere.”

Santos explains how, when setting up Bet Da Sorte, the team had to iterate upon the initial foundations of their platform provider to make it fit for a local Brazilian market. “The [platform provider’s initial] results were not what we wanted,” he says. “So we started working with them and changing margins, changing the idea of what the player needs, understanding that the product needs to be more ‘tropical’. We decided to take chances on changing how the images were on the website, how the odds were showing, what types of market we were allowing the players to bet on.”

Pix, Brazil’s payment USP

Another priority for operators to focus on in Latin America is payment speed, something that’s crucial to win the trust of an often sceptical audience. In Brazil, the dominant payment system is Pix, an incredibly effective mechanism accounting for over 90% of gaming transactions in the country, and which transfers cash in just a couple of seconds.

Santos believes that Pix is one of the biggest factors in how the Brazilian market works, and points to a nuance in how locals act when it comes to depositing and withdrawing with a sportsbook. He says: “Maybe one of the biggest things that differentiates the Brazilian market from other countries is how fast you can deposit and withdraw money. That’s one of the things that people don’t understand.

“People get scared because players in Brazil don’t leave money in their account so much. They deposit, they play. If they win, they take it out. It seems like they are careful leaving money there because they don’t know if it is going to be safe.”

Casanova echoes the need for speed, insisting: “In countries where we operate, the number one priority for an operator is to be able to pay winners quickly. When there are a lot of winning bets, the operator needs enough cash to pay winners and to be able to build this trust. This is the number one aspect, more than having competitive odds or as many bonuses as possible.”

Mobile first with older devices

The Honore Gaming CEO also believes that a mobile-first approach is crucial in emerging markets such as those in Central America. He says: “Mobile stands for 99% of the channels used by bettors. It’s much higher than the rest of the world. So, you need all your features, whether engagement-related or not, to be as easy as possible and to avoid needing a lot of pedagogy to explain your features.”

Atucha believes in the benefit of operators creating a “proper” native mobile app. He explains: “There are just a few that have created these, and in all those cases, we’ve seen a significant growth in engagement. You have push notifications, it’s a better experience for the player and much more controlled.

“We have a case of an operator in Mexico that released their native mobile app, and the boost was huge. Same thing we’re seeing with an operator in Brazil. It needs to be embraced by operators, because we know most of the players, most of the bets happen more and more on mobile.”

However, Brazil-based Santos identifies issues around the quality of phones that typical bettors own in his home nation. “We don’t have good internet,” he laments.

“We’re a huge country and I think around 70% of players that gamble today in Brazil don’t have iPhones. It’s mainly Android and I think 60% to 70% are old phones that don’t react well with the UX. We always speak about how we cannot consider the platform on my iPhone, but need to talk about the players’ phones.

“The UX situation and poor connectivity scenario is one of the biggest issues we have today. It doesn’t help our products. We need to make things easier so any player can play, have fun, and not have issues. If we get better latency and connectivity, we’re going to get better results. But at the same time, if we try to make the best website with the best images, maybe those phones are not going to be working 100%.”

Learnings from Europe and the cultural differences of Brazil

Latin America is a vast region, with plenty of nuances which aren’t always fully understood by the wider gambling industry. As Ramiro Atucha says: “The cultural gap is beyond the language barrier. There’s a huge difference in ways of conducting business and understanding each other between US, Europe and Latin America.“

This is a factor for player engagement but also for regulation. He doesn’t see the Latin American regulators learning from the European regulators’ results.

“Anyone looking at what’s happening in the UK and Germany with very unreasonable regulation should be doing something different in Latin America. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the case. We’re seeing the usual situation, local operators and local suppliers without the experience of long-standing British, European or American operators are struggling [in some aspects], but also being brilliant in their understanding of the local culture and how to approach players.

“You’re also seeing European or American operators and suppliers entering with the same technologies and practices and being brilliant on their technology and experience, but struggling to understand the market and adjust and adapt.

“Very few are taking the best of both worlds. I admire Rush Street and Betsson. They carry all their experience from long-standing time in very competitive markets, but they also take the time and the people to understand each market. They do it slowly, respect the culture and you can see the results.

Hugo Baungartner elaborates on the state of the industry in Brazil, just over a year after regulation came in for online gambling. “We’re still learning how to walk,” he says. “And we still have a lot of work to be done. In a way that is not only about regulation, I think our regulation is actually pretty strong, and we started in the right way with KYC, player protection and responsible gambling in place, everything is in there.

“They cannot play with credit card, crypto or cash. It’s only bank transfers, which gives us a lot of compliance. But still, there is a job to be done to make politicians, public opinion and the media understand how our industry works.”

Doing it right from day one

Tom Santos believes that his company Bet Da Sorte has enjoyed an advantage with its vast experience in the lottery sector, which has been regulated since 1945, 80 years longer than online sports betting and casino in Brazil.

He thinks other operators, who were previously working in the black market, have approached the regulated market the wrong way. “We started doing things the correct way since day one, and we felt that was one of the biggest green lights we had,” he explains. “I think 90% of the business came from the black market and they didn’t do the right things. They didn’t know how to pay taxes, they didn’t know how to have cash flow.

He thinks other operators, who were previously working in the black market, have approached the regulated market the wrong way. “We started doing things the correct way since day one, and we felt that was one of the biggest green lights we had,” he explains. “I think 90% of the business came from the black market and they didn’t do the right things. They didn’t know how to pay taxes, they didn’t know how to have cash flow.

“It’s almost impressive, some operators think about blocking withdrawals, they still think about doing things that are not correct and they’re losing customers. They don’t have the leap of faith with the players.”

The Bet Da Sorte CCO also points out another aspect of the Brazilian market, that isn’t necessarily recognised by those abroad – and that’s how regionalised it is. He explains: “We’re not a big investment group because the lottery is the main product and we’re not going to be like Superbet, who spent one billion reais on branding, or like Betano, but we feel you can have market share and an understanding of being a regional brand around Brazil because it’s so big.

“Brazil is almost the same size of Europe. You have states in Brazil that are bigger than Greece and Italy, and we have more revenue than these countries, so it’s pretty amazing what you can do acting regionally in Brazil.

“Sometimes people don’t understand because they see Brazil as so big and think they need to be in the whole of Brazil. But if you don’t bring, say, around 700 million reais, you’re not going to do a great job of being a national brand.”

In conversation with AI chatbots

Using artificial intelligence to personalise gambling experiences is a topic on the lips of many in the industry right now, and is seen as a sure-fire way of keeping players more engaged with an operator by serving them relevant content.

However, Casanova says he’s surprised that there are not more AI-based innovations coming from suppliers to facilitate this. He explains that a tool Honore Gaming is set to launch soon will suggest personalised additional bets to add to bet builders, based on the bet types the player has shown interest in previously. Increasing the number of bet lines in a parlay would naturally improve margins for operators.

Santos and Bet Da Sorte are planning to go big on AI with a new brand they are launching soon, called Top Bet. He describes it as a “very intelligent AI platform” with AI characters that talk to players. “We need to look at the future. It’s better for you to have AI that can speak to you the whole day. It can work 24-7. You’re going to have faces who will be with you the whole time. One girl, one guy. They’re going to be talking on our Instagram, our website and making sure that the player has the correct bet,” he elaborates.

Bet Da Sorte have already enjoyed success with a similar AI innovation on one of its lottery products, called ‘Dream of Luck’. There, players can talk to an AI chatbot called Lucky, that can suggest relevant numbers to choose based on their conversations. Santos gives an example of a player telling the AI they had a dream about their ex-partner.

Lucky may say something like: “Dreaming with your ex comes from your heart. This dream must show you that something with your past still touches you or misses you. So, the number 608 brings six, which talks about safeness, zero, that talks about the start, and eight that talks about equilibrium.” He says players have engaged with this AI chatbot and carry on talking even after getting suggested lottery numbers.

Gamification to drive engagement

While these AI personalisation ideas are for a new product, Bet Da Sorte has already profited from significant gamification tools on its existing site. Santos is passionate when he demonstrates these to iGB, explaining how 1% of what players bet goes to a ‘bounty’, earning points which can lead to opening ‘mystery boxes’, which could result in free bets or other rewards.

One example he gives is players earning 15 reais by placing 10 bets on the Premier League. Another is players earning early pay-out opportunities based on how many points they have earned.

He adds: “It’s something that depends on where the player wants to be and what the player wants to do. From that, you have a day-to-day routine of ideas and suggestions that you can pick. We’re not trying to force you to pick. You don’t need to use it, but there are people using it, getting free bets and making money from it. They’re having fun, and that’s what we’re looking for.”

Dominican Republic: A unique betting market

The Caribbean islands and Central America can often be overlooked and overshadowed by the larger nations of South America within the wider region of ‘LatAm’. But among those countries are plenty of fascinating markets to consider. Industry expert Ramiro Atucha explains why the Dominican Republic is one of them.

“We did a big project in the Dominican Republic and Dominicans bet in a very different way from anyone else. We had to make a huge adaptation to cater to that. Having that level of respect, going to places and understanding how they play and where they come from is key to engaging local players with your sportsbook.

“We had to implement significant changes to the platform because the Dominican market does not operate under traditional European standards. For example, there is a rule whereby in parlays any selections priced below -130 are automatically converted to -130, which requires adjustments to the parlay calculation engine. Additionally, historically, highly-correlated combinations have been allowed without the same mathematical adjustments that would typically be applied in Europe or the United States, directly impacting the design of the risk engine.

“Finally, it is a highly retail-driven market, where bets are placed using numeric codes at physical points of sale. This requires a different architectural approach compared to the typical mobile-first experience.”

Personalising for the local audience

Ultimately, getting the right engagement features that cater to the specific market or region can result in huge success. Atucha cites Rush Street’s entrance into the Colombian market as a great case study of this. “If you increase retention of players and their preference for you with good customer support, quick payments, all the right features, all the right bets and good margins to the player, then they bet more, trust you more, and you have less chance of losing them to a competitor,” he notes.

“If you’re a local operator and you understand the culture, you know the market, you need to make sure you stay on top of the players’ experience, because otherwise someone bigger is going to come with more resources, time and experience. If you’re not competitive in your offering, as much as you may be local and understand the players, they will still eat you, right?”

The players come first

Putting the players first with personalisation is also exactly what Santos thinks the focus should be to stand out from an increasingly crowded market. As he puts it: “Everybody’s going to have a lot of these features, the early payouts etc. If the score goes to 2-0, you’re going to have early payouts. So what should we do to make things different?

“It’s the way we act with players, allowing them to do what they want to do and as long as we are making sure they are safe and not passing the point of unhealthy [gambling] I think these things are where we’re going to be able to look at the product five years from now and say, this is what moved Bet Da Sorte forward.”

For Casanova, engagement tools are a central part of the transition from transactional betting experiences to entertainment-led ones. He concludes: “I think the old-fashioned sportsbook with lots of odds and this transactional aspect, will probably struggle and need to have an introspection.”

As technology advances and sports bettors across Latin America get savvier and more demanding, operators will have no choice but to keep producing new tools and features to stand out from the crowd.

JS

James Swann-Phillips

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