The first year of Brazil’s bold new era has seen the nation catapulted into the upper echelons of worldwide gambling. Official figures size the market at around $7bn, making it the second largest regulated online gambling jurisdiction in the world. 

Previously, in the absence of a law licensing all forms of gambling, Brazil hosted a vast grey market.  

Integrating most of these operators into a locally regulated framework represents a major shift for the country and has significantly strengthened player protection. 

Industry insiders argue that Brazil’s updated legislation reflects many of the most modern principles of safer gambling. They say the reforms have encouraged reputable operators that had previously avoided the country’s regulatory uncertainty, bringing with them international safer gambling practices that are helping to inform and raise standards across both the rules and the wider market. 

However Brazil is a dynamic country and there is no sense that the market will be standing still. On the contrary, the government is already looking to shake things up. 

Supplying new rules 

The path that brought Brazil to regulation was nothing short of winding and full of surprises. So longtime market watchers have not been surprised to see that politicians have continued to take a strong interest in the gambling market post-licensing. 

Right now, the government is proceeding on two main fronts. The first is: helping control market standards and fight the black market through the regulation of suppliers. 

Brazil’s Secretariat of Prizes & Bets has already signalled its intention to introduce new measures targeting suppliers. Through either a streamlined registration regime or comprehensive licensing, the regulator aims to curb the unlicensed sector’s access to content by compelling B2B providers to choose between serving the regulated market or illegal operators. 

This is a strategy that has gained a lot of traction globally, with moves by Sweden and Denmark to do similar already having taken place. 

The idea is that regulators want to starve the illegal market of content by making a condition of regulatory approval given to suppliers that they cannot sell to operators that break local rules by offering gambling without a licence. 

The policy is popular with operators that are licensed, who otherwise complain that they struggle to compete with the offshore market when they are offering players exactly the same content, but with better odds. 

What does this mean for hiring? 

It means that if you’re a B2B company with clients in Brazil, you better start thinking about beefing up your compliance department. 

For many years, the most that suppliers had to worry about were technical regulations and other areas of standard business law. 

Those days are rapidly disappearing into the rearview mirror and although Brazil may be the next jurisdiction to add complex new rules for suppliers to follow, it certainly won’t be the last. 

Luckily for the B2B sector, operators have been growing their compliance departments steadily for the past decade, meaning the market is well stocked with experience in understanding nuance and staying on the right side of the rules. 

On the flip side, compliance expertise with knowledge of the Brazilian market will be harder to come by. The market is still in its early stages and is showing signs of rapid growth, meaning that new entrants to the market on the B2C side are competing intensely for local knowhow. 

Extracting the best compliance staff to bolster a supplier’s internal team will likely require some outside recruitment assistance in order to reach those prime candidates and help them stand out from the crowd in a world where the power is often in the job-hunter’s hands. 

The old ad problem 

There are also concerns that the government will move against gambling advertising. Again, this will probably come as no surprise to anyone with a global view of the online gambling industry, but gambling marketing remains a very controversial issue. 

Brazil’s new market launch without any major controls over advertising, beyond the standard player protection elements that you would expect. 

That inevitably meant that gambling ads suddenly skyrocketed, as they gained access to more marketing channels than had been available under the previous grey market regime. 

Operators were also more feverishly competing for market share. With smaller margins thanks to pesky things like taxes and licence fees, grabbing players is extremely important and often things like loyalty programmes and bonus offers are the only thing that can make you stand out from the crowd. 

In particular, there has been an uptick in advertising around sports. Brazil’s obsession with football is well known and as the number of gambling ads visible at matches has climbed, so has political discontent about whether the sector is being too prevalent in the lives of everyday Brazilians. 

The government is believed to be preparing amendments that will restrict advertising in some way, with a potential broadcast ban not out of the question. 

What does this mean for hiring? 

One way or the other, operators are going to need to get creative. Whatever form the new marketing restrictions take, the companies that adapt in the fastest and cleverest ways will be presented with a golden opportunity to get ahead. 

Competent operators will likely already have some local talent in place to help them craft ads that appeal to a Brazilian audience, but you may want to augment that with experience from other markets where ads have gone through some testing times. 

Gambling companies thinking out of the box may wish to look to Italy, where operators were forced to adapt to an almost total ban on gambling marketing. Operators there still managed to grow the market in spite of this. 

That experience of thinking your way through a tough marketing landscape could be invaluable. 

Let’s Talk Talent  

Where might you find a hiring expert with a database of global gambling experts who may have exactly the advertising intelligence you need? Pentasia, is the obvious answer. 

At Pentasia, we help iGaming businesses plan and execute talent strategies across complex, fast-moving markets like Brazil. Whether you’re exploring market entry or preparing to adapt to the changing rules affecting your existing operator, we have the tools to help you thrive.