José Carlos Figueroa-Troche, Caribbean Government Relations and Business Development Representative Gaming Laboratories International, (GLI) presented the panelists of the first talk of the first day at GA Q2 MeetUp, which yesterday was entirely dedicated to live casinos in South America.

Victor Arias, Pragmatic Play Regional VP Latam. "When it comes to Latin America, we know it is a region that is constantly growing and maturing. This situation we are living since 2020 helps us to move forward to online gaming". He added that, due to the pandemic, operators have been forced to go online and regulators have had to speed up regulations. "Potentially speaking, it is a growing region. Colombia itself has proven to be the base for regulators in the region. The growth Pragmatic Play has experimented in the last 10 months has been great. We are based in all Latin America and we are expecting a lot more."

"We have seen several provinces in Argentina that are launching or ready to launch online regulations, and we have Peru ready to have a regulation, too, and Chile desires to regulate. The challenges are, in my opinion, mostly political".

William Lozano, TVBET Senior Sales Manager in LATAM, spoke about Colombia, which in 2017 was the first regional country that regulated online gaming. "We have to be careful with gambling addiction, we have to educate the players, but we can say that the reason why Colombia decided to regulate gambling was for the money. In 2020, for example, which was a very difficult year due to pandemic, the Colombian state collected 10 million dollars in taxes."

When talking about the main challenges for Argentina, he said that the two main challenges the activity has to face in the country are: political parties and also the currency.

Gabriel Szlaifsztein, General Manager LATAM at Continent 8 Technologies: "When I started in this activity I realized that Latin America is not in one colour. I think one of the most important challenges is the legal aspect in the way to promote basic standards for the whole region. For example, Argentina has not only one regulator, because each constitutional province regulate their own lotteries. So if you look at Argentina, half of the country is regulated, half is under regulated and one or two provinces are "on the way to", so it's not very easy if you want to provide some kind of legal security."

He underlined that companies and players should be under the same regulation. However, in his opinion, Argentina is a good place to do business.

On the other side, he thinks regulators should be provided technology to modernize controls, so the regulators can be sure that only authorized companies could stream their activities in authorized countries. "I would recommend all countries in the region to assure technology, a good connectivity."

Victor Araneda, Chief Business Development Officer at GAMING1: "We feel that if you've been a  successful casino operator, then you probably have the foundational piece that can drive your business in the online, and that foundational piece is the relationship with your patrons. That to us is a big predictor of success, and it's what we've been trying to do with our platform. We've been trying to find local partners. I think there is a special link between what the pure land based operator has done over time, and we know there are operators with decades of experience. We feel that bond they have with their patrons is a predictor of future success in the online business," he said.

"In order to promote that transition, you have several tools you can use, such as cross promotion, loyalty programs, you can bring special sessions for your top online players in a particular city, for example. We can talk about an omni-channel or a multi-channel experience, as now it is said", he added.

Eddie Morales Sales Director for LATAM at BetGamesTV: "Mi intention is not to convert players from the traditional casino, but to create a special offer for online casinos. Our focus is to be different. When you develop a live casino product you aim to target a lot of group players. That's a big barrier we try to break through promotions. Games are not so different, it is just the gap of the social experience (the place, the talk with the croupiers, etc) and the technological gap, specially at a certain age. I think these are the main challenges when going multi-channel." He considers Argentina has a big potential, specially the main cities in the country. He also highlights that the regulation in Bs As province is very clear.