Almost 85% of experienced Brazilian punters bet almost exclusively through frequent, small-stake, live in-play wagers. South African bettors, however, follow a different pattern: they place fewer bets, at higher stakes, and with more time between wagers.
This difference in behaviour forms the basis of joint research by SOFTSWISS’s Alexander Kamenetskyi and OddsMarket’s Sergii Mykhailenko.
The research highlights the importance of understanding player behaviour when developing appropriate product settings, risk controls and fraud-prevention technology that can effectively respond to the realities of each market.
What South Africa’s Betting Pattern Requires from Technology
Differences in player behaviour affect almost every layer of an operator’s operations, including how deposit and withdrawal limits are set, when identity checks are triggered and where automated systems distinguish between a legitimate large stake and a potentially suspicious transaction.
Applying settings designed for a high-frequency market such as Brazil to South Africa could result in systems designed to detect large volumes of small transactions looking for the wrong indicators. This can have implications for both commercial performance and the wider industry’s effectiveness.
The clearest example can be seen in fraud prevention and Know Your Customer (KYC) processes.
South African operators have developed fraud-prevention and KYC systems around identity checks at registration, as well as deposit and withdrawal monitoring calibrated more towards transaction size than frequency. This approach reflects a market where bettors tend to place larger, more considered wagers less frequently.
Brazil’s rapidly growing market, by contrast, is developing infrastructure around a different baseline: high-frequency, high-volume live wagering. As a result, the type of activity that may represent an anomaly in Brazil can look very different from what would be considered unusual in South Africa.
The same principle applies to product design and operational processes. A deposit limit or verification trigger designed around the betting patterns of one market may not necessarily work effectively in another.
Meeting the Regulatory Standard While Adapting to South Africa
South Africa’s National Gambling Board launched a Verified Gambling Operators portal in April, bringing licensing data from nine provincial authorities together in one place. The platform allows bettors to verify whether an operator holds a valid licence before making a deposit — an important development given that operators trading without licences have contributed significantly to the industry’s credibility challenges in South Africa.
While a licence confirms that an operator meets the required regulatory standard, it does not determine how effectively its systems are adapted to South African bettors.
Two operators may hold identical licences but operate very different systems behind the scenes. One may rely on slower, manual identity checks, while another may use automated monitoring designed around the way South African bettors actually behave.
That difference can determine whether local betting patterns are accurately identified and managed.
South Africa’s gambling turnover reached R1.5 trillion in the 2024/25 financial year, representing a 31.3% increase from the previous year.
However, growth on this scale has not fundamentally altered the underlying betting pattern. South African bettors continue to place fewer, larger wagers rather than moving towards the frequent, small-stake betting that is driving volume in faster-growing emerging markets.
Instead, the growth increases the cost of getting market-specific settings wrong.
An operator applying Brazil’s approach in South Africa — or South Africa’s approach in Brazil — risks running product, risk-management and compliance systems designed for a type of bettor that does not generally reflect the behaviour of that particular market.
Effective localisation therefore requires more than simply entering a new market. It means ensuring that product, risk and compliance systems are built around the behaviour of local bettors.
Achieving this requires technology that can be reconfigured from one market to another, as well as providers with the experience and capability to implement those adaptations effectively.
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