eSports
“We see LatAm as a hugely promising region” – Exclusive interview with Betbazar CEO on LatAm Esports
Alexandr Iaroshenko, CEO of Betbazar, gives Gaming Americas his two cents on how a quickly regulating Latin America is proving to be a huge opportunity for Esports – with a hugely diverse player base and a fast-growing interest proving to a key revenue driver.
Looking at the Americas, which markets are of most interest to Betbazar and where do you see the most growth?
We see LatAm as a hugely promising region in the Americas. We are looking very closely at it and are already active there through a number of our tier one partners. It’s no big surprise that Efootball has proven massively popular in many markets there, with Brazil being the most vibrant example of a future market with a huge amount of possible growth.
Indeed, when it comes to major markets, we estimate that 60% of Esports betting in Brazil will be on Efootball – and Argentina, which is already in the most part regulated, has proven very similar. However, in countries like Mexico there is more of a cultural split when it comes to player tastes. Football is still high on the menu, but that number is closer to 30%, with 25% betting on basketball and just as many preferring American football, rather than ‘soccer’.
Colombia is also an excellent market with a great growth trajectory, all though the tech can be limiting – and we still see this as early days as native platforms are proving an issue there, which we ideally need in order to deliver our best services. Only the major brands can do so platforms directly, such as Caliente and Salsa – which does limit scope.
Given the region’s unique segmentation, there is a lot to bear in mind as a result, but we’ve learned quickly. As well as regulation, economic trends and demographics, infrastructure is also key to powering the next decade. But all these things are moving in the right direction across large swathes of the region, spelling out a huge amount of opportunity there.
LatAm has certainly had to weather its fair share of challenges over the last 12 months – how has the market evolved and how do you see Betbazar as being able to make a difference for operators?
A lot of operators in LatAm were really prompt in reacting to the challenges of last year, they took the correct forward-thinking approach and invested in diversifying their portfolios quickly, with Esports being a big part of that.
If there is anything we should have learned about the last 18 months, it is that you never know what is around the corner and with the highly volatile nature of the ongoing situation – covering every base you can to entertain new players is essential. We know what players out there want, especially the new generation – and we’ve proven ourselves as key part of some of the major industry operators’ Esports set-up for some time now.
Looking to what is happening at this moment, audience demand has grown exponentially. LatAm has a huge young population that are far more likely to be tuned into Esports and the numbers have supported that. We’ve got a connected global generation like never before – and they’re very switched onto the Esports community already. Accordingly, we can offer popular games like Counter Strike, for example – which, according to our studies, accounts for almost 70% of bets in LatAm Esports.
It’s not hard to see why this number is so high, the game is very simple to understand. It’s a timeless tale of good guys vs bad guys that even the casual viewer can get their heads around very quickly. Helping operators to capitalise on this is one of our biggest priorities going forward. Betting that is easy to understand and simple to join in is key to retention and engagement in 2021.
How much does the nature of supply, and indeed, product requirements differ in LatAm from the likes of Europe?
The infrastructure of internet service is probably the biggest difference between the two regions, with regards to our offering. Due to the nature of our products – which rely on streaming and data, high quality mobile internet is vital, so that is the most important factor we will be keeping our eye on.
Connectivity can be a challenge. However, cheap, data-strong delivery is in existence already in many parts of the continent, where they are able to stream and bet simultaneously without any issues – we expect this to be the case across the continent soon. That is enough to make us confident about rollout there. We’re seeing tech and devices in LatAm evolve at a rapid pace and catching up with Europe, which means the best content can be integrated to really engage audiences.
However, as already mentioned in terms of B2B, platforms can be an issue as it is a closed ecosystem and still requires development. This can present challenges for integration, but native platforms from tier one operators are, of course, changing that – and the market will follow a natural course of evolution where far more availability comes with time.
Is it a case of offering a set of solutions that are specifically tailored to the market as opposed to a ‘one-size-fits-all’ for global delivery?
Generally speaking, there are two ways to supply Esports products. The first is direct integration with the platform. The odds and video streaming elements are integrated, the product is tested and has proved it’s functionality, the game’s fixtures are matched and from there you’re ready to go.
However, we like to keep things simple for our partners, and a much easier way is what we call ‘iFrame integration’. This is where you have everything on your site, and it appears as a pop-up window. So, all the work happens on our side. Design is included to the service we offer, the only thing that needs to be done by the operator is to connect their wallets and payment integrations. This kind of process solves a lot of pain points as it simply means providing a point of entry than can open the product on the site.
As well as that, it enables us to open another element of commercial communication, which promotes efficiency and scale as we help our partners to scale and manage their sportsbook directly through their sites. This means we, are able to have full clarity on betting activity, and fully support their growth
As well as this, the option for revenue share is available, which also makes the iFrame integration we offer an excellent way of dipping a toe in the water and seeing if the Esports landscape is what your business needs – and whether your audience is already familiar and ready for action.
Betbazar offers a real specialisation across Esports, how popular has this vertical proven in LatAm and what kind of games are proving to be the most popular?
The two main demographics we have seen in Europe and the US are those who joined during the pandemic and those who were interested in Esports beforehand. This has proved to be the same in LatAm. The first group is those who subsequently joined and tend to be drawn to sports simulators.
Such a demographic tends not to be big fans of RNG games including slots and likely shuns virtuals also, despite last year’s hype. The question, once acquired, is how to keep this group engaged going forward. A really important factor is to make it clear to players that the game is happening in realtime and they aren’t watching a recorded one – as live action is what it’s all about. As a result, a stream of the players in-play is important to communicate that sense of here-and-now, as well as the thrill of getting involved in what’s happening at that very moment, creating a real FOMO effect.
The second group are those already interested in the vertical and tend to enjoy the Battle Royale and deathmatch-style games, including Counter-Strike and Fortnite. They are typically under 30 and are used to playing these games and will continue to be interested post-COVID as this is a key part of their entertainment, whether or not there’s a lockdown.
We also have a schedule of the games and the players for each event on our website, so bettors can check ahead of time. Just like you’ll see in the likes of horse racing and US prop-bets, it’s all about the statistics – which is why we’ve emulated that by providing the same historical statistics for Esports players, and it’s proven incredibly popular.
Looking to the next 12 months, how would you forecast LatAm’s continued growth and what do you plan to bring to the table to support that?
The market is clearly opening up. There are plenty of new regions that are going to be regulated in the next year and we’re getting ready to support our partners there.
LatAm has always been treated as an emerging market, but the more it develops, the more regulation we see will ensure the market becomes more mature. This means we can expand our presence with the existing major players there and really start to capitalise on places like Brazil and Argentina.
We’re in close communication with the major local platform providers, so do stay tuned for plenty more from us!
eSports
Influencers, Content and eSports: Unleashing the Power of Dynamic Strategies in the eSports Ecosystem
The sports betting industry is undergoing significant growth worldwide with restrictions loosening and new markets emerging. New opportunities create fierce competition among sportsbooks, and this has led to them devising increasingly expensive and aggressive advertising campaigns.
Public figures and influencers have become a popular go-to for sportsbooks promotions, such as Michael Jordan partnering with DraftKings or Jamie Foxx with BetMGM. Big names are costly, and sportsbooks haven’t realised the ad spend used on these campaigns is going to waste. Without the right precautions in place, up to 22% of ad spend is lost to fraud according to Juniper Research.
The big budgets behind high-profile brand campaigns need to translate into real user engagement. To achieve this, sportsbooks must ensure their digital channels are optimised to capture the surge in interest these campaigns generate. Without proper management, this potential can be lost to inefficiencies like invalid traffic, diluting the impact of their investments.
Ad Budgets Going to Waste
In today’s competitive landscape, sportsbooks need to make every click count. In 2023 alone, The American Gaming Association estimated that over $1.9 billion was spent on advertising campaigns in the US. With such a large amount of spend in play, it’s crucial that sportsbooks see as big a Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS) as possible.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns are vital for sportsbook growth but can be disrupted by invalid traffic (IVT). IVT includes both malicious activity, like fraudulent bots, and unintentional actions, such as users repeatedly clicking on ads without intent to convert. These interactions inflate impressions and skew campaign performance data, leading to higher customer acquisition costs (CACs) and inefficient allocation of ad spend. Effectively managing IVT ensures that ad budgets drive genuine engagement and measurable growth.
Investing into influencers and celebrities also forces sportsbooks to bid on brand keywords to prevent their competitors stealing potential users searching for them. Up to 29% of PPC budgets are spent on this bidding according to Wordstream. As competition for brand keywords increases, PPC budgets are depleted without generating any new net revenue.
As campaigns become more expensive than ever, sportsbooks can’t afford to let profits fall to ad fraud. Instead of cutting budgets, sportsbooks should focus on analysing their campaign strategy.
Problematic Navigational Traffic
Navigational traffic is also presenting a significant challenge to sportsbooks alongside ad fraud. Navigational traffic refers to existing customers clicking on branded keywords to log into their accounts. While this seems convenient and harmless enough, this behaviour drastically inflates CACs. Like ad fraud, this can skew the effectiveness of PPC campaigns. By utilising paid search results instead of organic links to navigate to the site, costs are driven up without contributing to new user acquisition.
In addition to the challenges posed by navigational traffic and ad fraud, the competitive landscape for first-time depositors intensifies the need for strategic bidding on Google search. Brands investing heavily in influencers or sponsorships of major sporting events to generate awareness and drive potential users to search for them. However, without securing top placements in paid search results, these prospective customers may be intercepted by competitors before reaching the organic search listings. This creates a critical juncture where the effectiveness of a brand campaign hinges on converting that intent-driven traffic into first-time depositors, ensuring marketing spend achieves its goal of meaningful user acquisition.
First-time depositors are a critical metric for sportsbooks, and this issue directly impacts the cost efficiency of acquiring them. High CACs make marketing budgets less effective, reducing overall ROI.
Shoring Up Your Defences
Before launching costly ad campaigns, sportsbooks should adopt a multi-faceted approach to address ad fraud. IVT typically goes unnoticed, so to prevent this sportsbooks should monitor and analyse their campaign traffic for any suspicious activity. It is possible to identify IVT by looking out for signs such as irregular spikes in traffic from unknown locations or high pageviews. Fraudulent traffic can then by highlighted and removed.
The advancement of technology has made ad fraud more difficult to identify, and legacy fraud tools fail to detect IVT. They don’t analyse traffic at the impression level or consider the context of the business advertising. Sportsbooks can leverage ad-verification platforms to compensate for this. This allows sportsbooks to analyse and report suspicious traffic in real-time. Fraud can then be blocked before it has a chance to harm budgets.
Sportsbooks can also deploy tactics to reduce the impact of navigational traffic on CACs. Methods include encouraging existing customers to use mobile apps or direct bookmarks to log into their accounts instead of paid search campaigns. This decreases their reliance on PPC campaigns for navigation and protects budgets.
Keeping Profits in Sportsbooks’ Hands
Influencer and celebrity campaigns have proven to be a popular and useful tool in reeling new users and profits. However, if sportsbooks don’t have the essential precautions in place, they risk losing these profits to advertising fraud.
To make the most of their advertising efforts, sportsbooks need to prioritise their traffic. Implementing sophisticated tools to analyse traffic and filter out fraud will allow sportsbooks to protect their interests and focus on driving future growth. This way, they can secure their position in an increasingly competitive landscape.
Written by: Chad Kinlay, Chief Marketing Officer, TrafficGuard
A driven, open-minded, creative senior marketer with a strong sense of dedication and commitment. With over 15 years of progressive international experience in marketing and communications management, Kinlay has a credible history of commercial success.
eSports
Community Gaming Joins Forces with Moonton as Official Esports Partner for Mobile Legends: Bang Bang
Community Gaming (CG), the leading esports platform for automated tournament payouts and sponsor of the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang’s professional league for the Latin America Region, MPL LATAM, now supports developing esports communities in Latin America in collaboration with Moonton.
This partnership is a significant boost to CG’s existing advantages associated with its grant program, a partner-backed initiative to provide organizers with economic resources based on the performance and growth of their local gaming communities. Tournament organizers can apply to receive platform support, prizes, in-game currency, items, and tournament professional assistance including “Tournament Mode,” a special setting on Mobile Legends: Bang Bang that grants organizers enhanced features, such as unlocking all available skins in the game for players to fully enjoy a complete and unique MLBB pro tournament experience.
Wei Xu, regional esports operation manager at Moonton, said: “We are excited to announce the partnership with Community Gaming. Community Gaming is the most accepted esports platform in our community in Latin America. We hope this partnership brings new experiences to the players.”
As MPL comes to its end this year, CG will also be collaborating with MLBB professional teams for a flash $4000 prize tournament set to enhance the visibility of the company’s services. This event marks a pivotal moment set to highlight CG’s preparedness to impact the professional MLBB scene.
Community Gaming and Moonton are no strangers to mutual cooperation. In the past both companies have partnered to develop the Dawn of Heroes Series, a set of events in 2021 and 2022 that offered qualifying slots to MLBB’s Signature Competition, Liga LATAM. The companies have also worked together on Peru’s University Tournament INTERU 2023 and currently Community Gaming hosts significant activity of MLBB Tournaments from over 12 countries on a monthly basis.
Despite the continuing professionalisation of esports, misconceptions about player age persist – particularly of underage pros playing in professional esports.
Back in 2021, the PandaScore whitepaper dug into the data around player age in professional esports and found that the average age of a pro player was just under 24 years old. By comparison, the same report noted that the average age for a men’s professional footballer was about 26 years old.
While there is no great gulf in player ages between esports and traditional sports, there’s more apprehension around this topic once there’s a keyboard or controller involved. There are good reasons behind this focus, but the truth is that a simple and straightforward product makes player age verification easy.
The reason behind the focus on player age
Compliance with player age requirements has been a particular concern as legalised sports and esports betting rolls out across the US. These are completely reasonable concerns, partly because of the state-by-state nature of American regulation, but also due to past compliance issues in the likes of ITF tennis.
Age compliance isn’t a challenge unique to esports. It does have younger players in the same way tennis does, so it’s a space that operators consider a potential risk area based on precedent. While it’s understandable to be vigilant about ensuring age compliance across your whole book, the reality in esports is it’s just like any other sport.
However, with this greater attention, it’s crucial for esports suppliers to have a simple, high-quality solution that is flexible for any jurisdiction – and not just treat it as a spreadsheet-based, tack-on service.
Importance in the US
It’s abundantly clear that if you want to ensure compliance in the US space, player age verification isn’t a nice to have, it’s an integral part of your product. Across each jurisdiction player age verification can vary – something we’ve seen in Europe as well such as Sweden’s rule that a match must have 60% of players over the age of 18 for an operator to offer match bets.
In sports, it’s fairly straightforward to implement but has been an oversight from sports data providers in the past. It’s quite easy to provide, it just requires collecting data from multiple, reputable sources outside of the match itself.
PandaScore has been collecting player age verification data since it was founded in 2017 to ensure compliance no matter the regulation, no matter the jurisdiction.
Embedding player age verification in your product
Ensuring age compliance was a founding principle for our product suite – we included it as a key datapoint in our API, which is the bedrock of our broader offering. Suppliers should have this embedded in their products, rather than an additional service.
PandaScore believes that offering player age verification as part of an API and integrated into your service means you can be more confident in your compliance not just for individual esports titles, but from match to match.
For us it’s simple: one of PandaScore’s founding principles is to not rely on only one single data source, but leverage multiple quality data sources that we can trust. We have a longstanding and highly developed process that guarantees a level of accuracy for player age verification that’s in line with regulation and gives operators the confidence that they’re compliant. Our practice of using multiple data sources means that double and triple-checking information to ensure player age compliance is in our nature.
With player age verification built into an API, operators can leverage the data to match the compliance needs of any given jurisdiction. This can be done by integrating player age data via the API, it can be included in their feed via our odds product with the flexibility to add exclusions where necessary, or if an operators wants it in a simper form, it can be done via request.
Player age verification might seem like a simple item, but is a compliance matter that’s essential to operating in a proper fashion. Noting the concerns and greater focus on player ages in esports, it’s something that’s important to get right: player age verification should be entrenched in esports products themselves to give operators the flexibility and simplicity that they need.
Author: Oliver Niner, Head of Sales at PandaScore.
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