Has Regulation Changed the Affiliate Game in Brazil? | Manuel Matos | Super Afiliados

iGaming Real Talk is launching a new interview series from BiS Sigma South America. The event has matured into a perfect melting point for business in Brazil and also Latin American market. In two days, we have had conversations with leaders, experts from mature businesses in LatAm and Brazil, and we talked about the regulation as well as the state of the market in Brazil after regulation. This series is brought to you by EvoVerse.

They offer custom crypto casino source code so that you can launch your crypto casino the way you want it, and you can have full control over your margins and the product. This series is also brought to you by Blockotech, which is your go-to platform provider for LatAm market. The Blocko Battle Tour, sponsored by Sigma, also brings together global iGaming community with sport, fun, and competition across some of the events.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of iGaming Real Talk. Today, we are here at Sigma in São Paulo, and I have Manuel from Super Afiliados, a very good company that I have been in touch with for a number of years now, because I was here 2 years ago, even before that when I was working in WA Technology. I've known about Super Afiliados, and I also recently interviewed Alessandro.

Yeah.

And I know that's he's one of the founders of the of this company. So, I'm really excited to kind of have you here as well as discuss some of the things in affiliate space.

What's up, Surya? Well, first of all, thanks for the invite, Surya. We've got a really nice project here going on and it's an honor to be here to be able to talk a bit about Super Afiliados, about the current scenario of the regulated marketing Brazil. I think we have quite some nice things to talk about us.

Cool. So, so just to kick off, it's on everyone's mind, right? When we look at Brazil, what has changed is mainly the regulation. Right? So, you've been in the affiliate space for almost eight, 10 years. You've been with the Super Afiliados for a long time as well. And you also ran a lot of affiliate operations from my understanding. So, what do you think? Like, what is the one big real change that happened when we compare to pre versus post regulation in the affiliate space?

Well, a lot of things changed since the market got regulated. Especially for the affiliates, what most affected was how they can promote. Okay. Because before was there were no rules. So, they used to get very creative. Some very good strategies that nowadays they are not considered so correct, let's say. And so, they had to change a lot of stuff on how they promote, not only sports book, but casino as well.

What has restricted now compared to previously?

Uh for example, before they used to do signal groups saying "Tigrigo, the Fortune Tiger is paying this time, that time, the other time." Because Brazilians, the masses, they are not aware how the industry works. That's a bit of information. So, they think "Okay, maybe they found a bug on the operator. Maybe that time is what pays in the casino." So, they go there, they bet, and the affiliates were able to do a lot of FTDs and get them retained.

Signal like the chat app, right?

Like Telegram.

Which is famous in Brazil?

Very famous. Very good to go strategy that brought us a lot of activities in the past.

Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Very interesting. And any other channels that any other campaigns types that went out of relevance?

Well, now for example, even the streamers and the tipsters, they need to be a bit more concerned about what they talk about because they cannot guarantee winnings. They cannot say welcome bonus. Welcome bonus is something that the regulation kind of put a break on because you cannot give like an incentive for the person to feel compelled to go and bet, you know?

It's a fine line, you know, if we get into that.

Correct.

But you know, how much is too much? This is the main question, right? Like for a country like Brazil where sports is kind of like a religion, you know, and where the penetration is very high, where the market was really flourishing, if I may say. What is the big challenge right now you're seeing in the affiliate space?

Well, some operators are doing quite some heavy KYC. Obviously, they don't want to get any legal consequences, but we see a lot of affiliates that they ended the change industry, either they paused like Super Afiliados, we paused operations in the end of 2024.

Okay. When the regulation came in?

Exactly. We waited a bit to understand how the field was going to be set in terms of legal questions because Brazil it's a bit of a unpredictable market. One day the president wakes up and says, let's regulate. The next week he says, let's stop everything. Betting is destroying families. We want the tigers, fortune tiger tigrinho, the reference, out of the houses of the family of Brazilians.

So, you have it in a scenario that you don't You're not sure where to focus because you don't know if tomorrow it's going to be still able to be done that way, you know? But things bit by bit they are starting to settle, things are getting more clear. Super Afiliados itself now is restarting after the event. We're going to do some big announcements on some collaborations we did, some new opportunities we are bringing into the markets.

And as always, we always committed to help the affiliates to improve their operations, to promote it properly in a way that the operator is happy, so they have a long-term partnership, but affiliate also can escalate it and make a good amount of revenue.

So, you're more like the bridge between affiliates and operators?

Completely the bridge between affiliates and operators. And we stand out because our good conduct, operators know that fraud is not allowed. We are now recently here in Brazil some cases of some bets that were giving very high CPAs and accepting incentivized traffic, which is considered fraud. And that created a bit of an insecurity for many operators regarding the affiliates. And it's something that when they work with certain networks, they kind of know what to expect.

Now they do the KYC as well. And yeah, we are able to agree on good partnerships.

So, you basically kind of like protect both sides and take care that it's a balance.

Yeah, you said about something else, but it's a thin line...

Yeah.

That because cannot be better than for the affiliate or for the operator, otherwise none of them will start.

Cool. So, can you also like announce the big announcements here in iGaming Real Talk for Super Afiliados? Or what's going to change? What's the new things coming up?

Fair. So, we have recently acquired a big operation of our network...

Congratulations.

Thank you. Thank you. Which is Bet Boss.

Bet Boss?

Bet Boss. They're going to be also providing the panel, which is very complete. They have very good anti-fraud system. And this is to change the game for us. And the second announcement is that Pedro Feitosa, one of the biggest tippers of Brazil, is going to be our CEO. He's going to be taking care of the operation together with us. He's known by the good marketing he does, being a correct person, not tricking anyone.

He has many years of market, so he's going to put us back in a very good spotlight.

Wow, nice. Manuel just made two big announcements that they're going to bring back Super Afiliados with after a little break to kind of reorient as well as reorganize the strategy. So, I'm very happy that you have shared those first time here in this interview and I really wish from our community that everything will go as planned and even better.

I'm sure. I'm sure. I count on that big time.

Cool. So, if we look at the next 1 year, 1 and 1/2 year from now, from where we are here in Brazil, what are the opportunities you're looking at and what are the plans for the new revived Super Afiliados?

Okay, opportunities. Now, we need to start doing the whole negotiation again with all the operators.

Okay.

So, before Super Afiliados used to work with a line of credits, a prepaid amount that we would use to pay the CPA a bit more frequently to help with the cash flow of the affiliate, smaller affiliates, to then escalate because that used to lack. Now, with the regulation, we're not going to have the line of credits, we're going to have to work with the operator rules because regulated markets is a bit more demanding, let's say.

So, the payments will respect nowadays what they have to respect in terms of time.

Mhm. Great. And are you also planning to venture into other countries in LATAM or more focused on Brazil?

Good point. I like that. We are focused on Brazil, always been focused on Brazil, but we do plan to target other countries in LATAM. To give you myself, a partner of mine, we are exploring some of these GEOs.

Mhm.

Doing some tests. When we have them validators, we're going to bring them into Super Afiliados because, I mean, why not go global? We have a good structure. We have a good team. We have good affiliates. Brazilian affiliates do very well outside Brazil with their strategies. So, yeah, don't see why not.

Cool. And are you seeing any specific country getting more attention, you know, in the region in Latin...

Some. I've been hearing and I've been seeing very good with Chile. Chile, I've been doing seeing very good results. The minimum salary there is quite high. I think it's the highest of Latin America. It's over $1,000.

Oh, okay. Interesting.

So, the players, they spend a bit more than Brazil. Acquisition is not that much more expensive, which is good.

Yeah. Still, for now.

Exactly. Exactly.

How the market goes.

The thing is like Chile is not as big as Brazil, for example. Yeah. Brazil is 240 million people. There is like 22 million. Other countries, we have Ecuador, we have Venezuela that I've been hearing some people looking into that markets, probably because of Trump and all the situation there.

Yeah. Country's almost bankrupt situation, right?

No, Venezuela was in a total state of shit but now with exploration of the oil, they are predicting a good future.

Yeah, Trump is going to make it great again.

I think that's his speech.

[laughter] That's a total. We count on it. Cool. Manuel, thank you so much for joining me as well as sharing the insights on affiliates as well as what's going on in Brazil here and also sharing your latest updates from Super Afiliados. It's a company that I really like just because of the amazing people that work there, including yourself. So, it's a pleasure to have you here and I look forward to meeting again at another summit.

So, we don't sure going to meet you in other events.

Cool. So, that's it guys from here. That's Manuel from Super Afiliados. Please do like, subscribe, as well as follow him on LinkedIn, follow Super Afiliados. Share your thoughts in the comments below. Wherever you're watching, like what do you think about Brazil? What's going on? And if you see any other opportunities, challenges, and we'll be in touch with another episode. Thank you.

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