Jordi Sendra, Alea: “Everyone assumed Brazil would work like a regulated European market from day one, but it didn’t”

Focus Gaming News spoke with Alea CEO Jordi Sendra regarding the company’s experience as the first aggregator in Brazil and the technical challenges of navigating the country’s evolving regulatory framework.

Exclusive interview.- As Brazil’s regulated online gaming market moves from its launch phase into a period of consolidation and operational discipline, the role of technology partners is becoming increasingly central. In this exclusive interview with Focus Gaming News, Jordi Sendra, CEO of Alea, reflects on the realities of being the first aggregator to go live in the country and the lessons learnt during the market’s first year under regulation.

Alea was the first aggregator to go live in Brazil. Looking back at those early days, what was the biggest gap between the international “expectation” of the Brazilian market and the “boots-on-the-ground” reality you encountered?

The biggest gap was that everyone assumed Brazil would work like a regulated European market from day one, but it didn’t.

Here’s what actually happened: we had game providers who weren’t prepared for the new regulation, and some who weren’t even interested in entering Brazil. The certification labs were completely overwhelmed because everyone was trying to certify at the same time. There simply wasn’t enough testing capacity for the demand. We saw this bottleneck coming early, which gave us an advantage.

And even after January 1, the market didn’t magically stabilise. The Secretariat of Prizes and Betting (SPA) within the Ministry of Finance (MF) spent most of mid-2025 cleaning up grey market remnants and refining the regulatory framework. So operators who thought they could just launch and figure it out later found themselves constantly adapting to new requirements.

The real challenge wasn’t just technical. Many international providers had no idea how to navigate the Brazilian tax framework or what the specific reporting requirements actually meant in practice. The regulatory details kept shifting during the postponements, so we ended up spending months before January helping providers understand what they needed to do, which titles should be prioritised, and how to structure their compliance approach.

Being first in Brazil wasn’t about being the fastest. It was about starting earlier than everyone else and doing the preparation work while others were still waiting to see what would happen. We had been operating in Brazil before the regulation came into effect, so we already knew which games performed best and which providers were essential for local players. That knowledge made it possible to be strategic about what needed to be certified from day one.

The expectation was that it would be a race for content. The reality was that it was a race for compliance, and we had already started running.

You manage the largest portfolio of certified content in the market. As regulation has solidified, what has been the most challenging aspect of ensuring that international content creators meet the specific technical standards required by Brazilian authorities?

The real challenge hasn’t just been technical; it’s been navigating the complexity of the tax environment together. We’re in early 2026 now, and we’re learning that the original 12 per cent GGR tax in 2025 was only the beginning; it’s now increasing to 13 per cent in 2026, with further steps already legislated. We’re closely monitoring the additional tax proposals that could affect deposits and player funding flows, because what affects our clients affects us. 

Helping our international partners understand how these layers, like that 15 per cent on deposits, actually affect their bottom line has been a big part of our daily work. It’s moved us into a role where we’re not just a bridge for games, but more of a consultant helping providers adapt their business models to the Brazilian reality.

Being at the intersection of tech and content, Alea has seen the “plumbing” of the industry. What technical hurdles did you face early on regarding latency and local infrastructure that newcomers are likely overlooking today?

It’s often the small operational details that make the biggest difference. For instance, running a top-tier operation in Brazil while sitting in a European office on a 9-to-5 schedule is very difficult in practice. Brazil is incredibly mobile-focused; 84 per cent of players are on their phones, and their peak hours happen exactly when European teams are usually finishing their day. 

If your systems aren’t ready for those massive spikes of 21,000 transactions per second, or if you don’t have a team awake and ready to support you on the LatAm clock, you risk losing the player’s interest. We learnt early on that we had to be present and responsive exactly when the market is most active.

Alea has watched operators transition from a “grey market” mindset to a highly structured environment. What is the one thing operators used to do two years ago that would be a catastrophic mistake in the current regulated climate?

The biggest shift I’ve seen is around financial transparency. In the grey market, operators had very little pressure to document how money moved through their platform. Payment infrastructure wasn’t always built with regulatory scrutiny in mind. In an environment with limited formal oversight, that simply wasn’t the priority.

In a regulated market like Brazil today, that same approach puts your licence at serious risk. The SPA/MF requires full traceability of transactions, and if you can’t demonstrate clean financial flows, you’re not just facing a fine; you’re creating a much bigger problem for your operation. We’ve seen operators underestimate how deep that transparency requirement actually goes.

The mindset change required is significant. Grey market operators optimised for speed and volume. Regulated operators need to optimise for auditability. Those are genuinely different ways of running a business, and the ones who haven’t fully made that shift yet are carrying real risk right now.

Data is the heart of an aggregator. Has the Brazilian player’s appetite for specific game mechanics (e.g., Crash games vs. traditional slots) surprised you compared to the initial projections you had for the region?

Brazil is a truly unique case because the market is so concentrated and heavily mobile-driven. From the outset, we saw a massive preference for Crash games and specific Asian-themed slots, particularly among those who entered the ecosystem through mobile-first experiences.

What’s interesting as we move through 2026 is that we are starting to detect early signals of broader experimentation. While Crash games remain the dominant force, there is a growing curiosity around different mechanics and more layered experiences. It isn’t a full market shift yet, but there are clear indications that segments of the player base are beginning to look beyond the initial wave of ultra-simple formats.

There is a lot of industry discussion regarding how Brazil may evolve towards more sophisticated content over time. From our perspective as an aggregator, we are preparing for that horizon by ensuring our operators have access to a diverse portfolio. Our goal is to have the infrastructure ready so that when player behaviour expands, our partners are already positioned to meet it.

For now, it’s less about a dramatic transformation and more about watching the data carefully. The market is still defining its identity, but these early signals suggest it certainly won’t remain static.

With SBC Rio and SiGMA São Paulo on the horizon, we are entering a “fine-tuning” phase of the market. What are the complexities that Alea is currently solving for that didn’t even exist during the first wave of entries?

The January 2025 rush to go live is over. Now in 2026, it’s about who can actually stay profitable. With rising acquisition and tax costs, only operators with efficient technical stacks and reliable aggregators are going to make it work long-term.

The complexity around SIGAP compliance is a good example. Game certification is handled by SPA-authorised testing labs, but that’s just the starting point. What matters now is making that compliance work operationally at scale. We ensure that certified games are integrated and maintained according to SIGAP’s data and reporting requirements. In 2026, compliance isn’t a certificate you frame; it’s continuous API-based reporting and structured data flows that align with the Ministry of Finance’s framework. We act as the technical translator between game providers and the regulatory infrastructure, so operators can focus on their business while we manage the complexity of keeping hundreds of integrations aligned.

On security, we’re seeing more AI-driven bonus abuse and identity spoofing. Our reverse integration architecture creates visibility across the entire portfolio. Because we see traffic patterns across multiple providers and operators, we can identify anomalies that wouldn’t be visible if an operator is only looking at their own data. The security is not an add-on; it’s built into how our technology is structured, which gives operators an advantage without adding more complexity.

Another shift is around portfolio optimisation. Operators have stopped caring about vanity metrics like having 10,000 games. They want to understand GGR per square inch of mobile real estate. We’re helping them focus on the 20 per cent of content that drives 80 per cent of retention. That kind of portfolio discipline wasn’t even part of the conversation a year ago.

The entry of European operators has added complexity, too. They bring regulatory experience from mature markets, which is valuable, but what gets underestimated is how different Brazilian player behaviour is and how critical it is to operate on a LatAm schedule. If your infrastructure and support aren’t built for that reality, you’re creating problems for your partners during their busiest hours.

The questions we’re solving now are about staying profitable in a regulated market with real tax pressure. That’s a completely different challenge, and that’s where a solid aggregation partner and operational discipline will make a difference. 

“Operators have stopped caring about vanity metrics like having 10,000 games. They want to understand GGR per square inch of mobile real estate.”

Jordi Sendra, CEO at Alea.

If you could go back to the day Alea first launched in Brazil, what is one strategic partnership or operational approach you would handle differently knowing what you know today?

I would have prioritised our investment in a local team even earlier. As a Spanish company, we naturally share a lot of cultural values with the Latin market, and that gave us a strong starting point. However, we’ve learnt that there is no substitute for having people physically present in the market who truly understand the day-to-day reality, everything from the specifics of the PIX ecosystem to the real influence of local creators.

While we eventually got our teams perfectly synchronised with the LatAm schedule, having that local expertise from the very beginning would have been invaluable. It removes the guesswork and allows you to be much more responsive to your partners, especially during the high-pressure periods of regulatory change that we’ve navigated over the last year.

“We’ve learnt that there is no substitute for having people physically present in the market who truly understand the day-to-day reality.”

Jordi Sendra, CEO at Alea.

As Focus Gaming News transitions into a Media-Tech model with tools like myFocus, we see technology driving the next era of gaming. How is Alea evolving its tech-stack to move beyond simple aggregation and into becoming a strategic intelligence partner for Brazilian operators?

We’ve always believed that aggregation has to be more than just a “pipe” for games; it needs to be the “brain” that helps an operator make better decisions. We’re focusing a lot of our energy on our Client Area to give operators more control and transparency. Whether it’s real-time analytics or managing RTP configurations, we want to give our partners the tools to stop guessing and start using data to grow. In 2026, the aggregators that truly add value are the ones helping operators manage their margins and build a sustainable business in a very competitive environment.