Gustavo Hiroshi, Zenith: “Brazil’s influence on the wider region is only going to grow”

Gustavo Hiroshi, Business Development Manager at Zenith, examines with Focus Gaming News how Brazil’s first year of regulated igaming is reshaping operator strategies and accelerating the professionalisation of the industry across Latin America.

Exclusive interview.- Brazil’s regulation is having an impact that extends beyond its own borders. Speaking with Focus Gaming News, Gustavo Hiroshi, business development manager at Zenith, discusses how the experience of the Brazilian market is prompting operators to adopt more structured strategies for expanding across Latin America, with a greater focus on localisation, regulatory compliance and data analysis.

Brazil is often described as the anchor market for Latin America. How is it influencing operator strategy across the wider region?

Brazil is the benchmark and at this point most serious operators know it. The population size, the revenue potential and the maturity of Brazilian digital consumers make it impossible to ignore, but what is interesting is how the conversation has shifted. International operators no longer see Brazil as a standalone market. Increasingly, they are treating it as the gateway to the entire region and that changes how they plan and invest in a meaningful way.

At Zenith, we see this reflected directly in how operators approach content strategy. The performance data we gather across our network in Brazil is increasingly being used to inform decisions in Colombia, Peru and Mexico, with operators drawing on what converts in one market to build smarter portfolios in the next. That kind of cross-market intelligence is something OneAPI is particularly well positioned to support, given the breadth of operator relationships we hold across the region.

What has also changed is the level of regional awareness among operators. Speaking with non-Brazilian industry professionals, there is now a clear understanding that Latin American countries are culturally very different from one another, each with its own consumer behaviour, payment preferences and player expectations. That sounds obvious but for a long time it was not reflected in how operators approached the region. Brazil has forced that conversation in a way nothing else has.

What are the biggest lessons operators have taken from Brazil’s first year of regulation?

Regulation completely transformed the market and the scale of that transformation caught a lot of operators off guard, even those who thought they were prepared. Beyond the licensing costs and heavy taxation, companies had to significantly expand their teams and invest seriously in compliance, legal, responsible gaming, KYC and operational processes just to meet the basic regulatory requirements. The market became far more complex, far more expensive and far more demanding almost overnight.

The biggest lesson though has been understanding how the government may approach and manage the industry over time. After most licences had already been issued, Brazil introduced additional rule changes that created real uncertainty for operators who had already made major investments. Enforcement against unlicensed operators has not been as effective as many expected either and ongoing discussions around further restrictions, including potential limitations on online casino operations, continue to create concern across the industry. The market rewards those who build for uncertainty rather than those who assume the conditions they launched in will stay the same.

How are those lessons being applied when operators look at expanding into other LatAm markets?

Operators are approaching other LatAm markets with a much more cautious and structured mindset than they would have done before Brazil regulated. The days of moving fast and figuring it out later are largely over for anyone serious about the region.

Interestingly, many companies are initially entering new markets through unlicensed operations to test player behaviour, acquisition costs and product performance before committing to a full regulated launch once the licensing framework becomes clearer. It is a pragmatic approach, though it comes with its own risks and it reflects just how much operators have learnt about the cost of getting market entry wrong. Brazil taught them that the investment required to operate properly in a regulated environment is significant and committing before you understand the market can be an expensive mistake. This is part of why Zenith’s localised support and certified content infrastructure across LatAm has become an increasingly important part of how operators structure their entry strategy, with GamesAPI giving them the flexibility to launch selectively in new markets without overcommitting on content overhead before they understand what their players actually want.

What role does localisation play when expanding from Brazil into neighbouring markets?

From a content perspective, testing and positioning are everything. Casino players are constantly looking for new games, new mechanics and engaging experiences, which makes content visibility extremely important when you are trying to build momentum in a new market. Success is not about having the largest portfolio. It is about placing the right content in front of the right audience at the right time, and that is something Zenith’s performance data across multiple jurisdictions helps operators get right from the outset rather than through trial and error.

Casino managers and CRM teams need to stay closely attentive to emerging trends, the games being promoted by digital influencers and new mechanics gaining traction, because these factors can shift player demand quickly. What works brilliantly in Brazil will not automatically land the same way in Colombia, Peru or Mexico. The operators doing well across the region are the ones treating each market as its own content challenge rather than assuming a Brazilian playbook travels. OneAPI supports exactly that approach, giving operators a single integration point through which they can access and deploy localised, certified content across multiple markets without the overhead of managing each provider relationship independently.

As Brazil matures, how will it continue to shape the development of other regulated markets in the region?

Brazil’s influence on the wider region is only going to grow. Operators, providers and regulators from neighbouring markets are watching closely, analysing both the successes and the challenges to understand what might work within their own frameworks. In many ways Brazil is serving as a live blueprint for what regulated igaming looks like at scale in Latin America and the lessons being drawn from it are already shaping how other markets think about licensing, enforcement and responsible gaming.

Beyond regulation, Brazil is accelerating the professionalisation of the industry across the region more broadly. Standards for compliance, technology, localisation and operational structure are rising as a direct result of what Brazil has demanded from operators. The size of the market also means it will continue to drive gaming trends, CRM strategies, affiliate marketing and content positioning across Latin America for years to come. At Zenith, that is exactly the kind of environment we have built our infrastructure for, with OneAPI and GamesAPI designed to give operators the commercial terms, content access and operational flexibility to move confidently as new markets open and existing ones mature. The markets paying close attention now will be the ones best positioned when their own regulatory windows open.