Online gambling operators in Latin America are struggling to sustain growth beyond their first year as rising customer acquisition costs, intensifying competition and platform restrictions put pressure on profitability and player retention, according to Zenith Business Development Manager Gustavo Hiroshi.
Speaking to Yogonet in an exclusive interview, Hiroshi said the challenges facing operators have shifted from entering new markets to maintaining their position in increasingly competitive environments, with smaller and mid-sized businesses particularly vulnerable to slowing growth after their initial launch period.
He discussed the role of customer data, CRM strategies, game portfolio management, and technology partners in addressing these challenges, arguing that long-term retention depends less on finding a single winning formula than on understanding player behavior and continuously adapting to it.
The narrative around LatAm has shifted considerably over the past 12 months from market entry to sustainability. From the operator conversations you are having, where are operators struggling post-launch?
Small and mid-sized operators typically build their plans around three horizons: six months, 18 months, and three years. The first six months are generally manageable because the goals are immediate and the path is reasonably predictable. The problems tend to surface as operators move into the first and second year, when market conditions have shifted, acquisition costs have risen, and what worked at launch no longer delivers the same results.
Scalability and retention are where I see the most pressure. The first five months often produce strong growth that gives operators confidence, but from around the 12-month mark, that growth slows or stagnates. This is where a meaningful number of operators struggle, and some eventually fail. The challenge was never just launching successfully. It is sustaining that performance over time in markets that are becoming more competitive every quarter.
Portfolio strategy is one of the areas operators consistently underestimate after go-live. Why are some operators getting it wrong, and how quickly does it start to affect performance?
A lot of small and mid-sized operators are working within the constraints of third-party platforms, and those constraints shape their portfolio decisions in ways they do not always recognise at the time. They face additional markups on games, restricted catalogues, and limited access to features that could make a real difference to their players.
The result is that operators end up making decisions based on what the platform allows, and their players and their business pay the price for it. The performance impact can appear quickly, particularly in markets where players have access to multiple operators offering similar content.
This is where GamesAPI makes a material difference. By giving operators selective access to high-performing content at competitive commercial terms, it removes the ceiling that a restrictive platform model imposes and puts the content decision back in the operator’s hands rather than the platform’s.
What are the most common technical and operational gaps you see emerging six to twelve months after launch?
Technical challenges tend to surface once an operation starts growing, and they can be particularly damaging for operators on third-party platforms. No platform is entirely free of technical issues; these are complex systems built on multiple interconnected technologies, and as player volumes increase, problems become more likely to emerge.
While no platform will ever be entirely free of technical problems, what separates good partners from bad ones is how quickly and transparently issues get resolved. When operators are on a third-party platform, they are dependent on their provider to investigate, understand, and act.
The priorities of a platform provider do not always align with the urgency of the operator. An issue that is commercially significant for one operator may not be significant enough to jump the queue. That misalignment is something I see regularly across LatAm.
Zenith’s account management model is built around staying close to operator performance once they are live, which means problems tend to be caught and escalated early.
The platform you choose determines how quickly you can respond when something goes wrong. In LatAm’s competitive markets, that speed is a commercial consideration as much as a technical one.
Retention is becoming the defining factor in LatAm’s more mature markets. What are the operators holding onto players doing differently from those who are losing them?
Two things consistently separate the operators who retain players from those who struggle to hold onto them: CRM and user experience. Players across LatAm typically have accounts with multiple operators, which means the question at the 12-month mark has shifted away from acquisition entirely and toward being the platform a player chooses to open when they are ready to play.
A strong user experience creates comfort and familiarity, from the moment a player logs in through to finding the content they want. CRM keeps the relationship active through consistent, personalised communication. Having a well-structured player database makes both possible, enabling operators to run A/B tests, analyse results and refine their approach continuously.
One thing I find particularly interesting is that brand visibility matters even when engagement is passive. A player who does not open your email about the Champions League tonight has still seen your brand.
Retention is as much about staying visible as it is about being engaging, and operators who understand that tend to build more durable player relationships over time. When they are ready to play, the platform they recall is the one that has stayed in front of them.
For an operator who has been live for 12 months and is not seeing the results they expected, what is the single most important thing they need to address?
After the first 12 months, most operators have already built a solid player base and collected valuable data. The biggest challenge at that stage is retention: bringing players back, reducing churn, and giving them reasons to keep choosing your platform over the competition.
Everyone in this industry, myself included, is looking for that winning formula to keep players engaged. The honest answer is that there is no magic solution. What works is knowing how to use your data through player segmentation, personalised offers, CRM strategies and relevant content. True player retention means continuously understanding how your players behave, testing new approaches and adapting to what keeps them coming back.
Working with the right aggregation partner is part of that picture. Zenith’s OneAPI gives operators access to a broad portfolio of content through a single integration, while GamesAPI focuses on game distribution, giving operators flexibility to curate market-specific portfolios at competitive commercial terms. Together, they give operators content depth and agility, which is exactly what retention strategies depend on and what we build our ecosystem for.