With Alberta, Canada, Finland and New Zealand all on the cusp of launching regulated iGaming markets, Consultant and former 888 Holdings CEO Itai Pazner ponders where you should be looking for growth opportunities.
Any serious iGaming business should always be searching for future growth engines. That is true whether you are operating in the UK, the US, Latin America, or Africa. iGaming is a volatile industry. Regulation can fundamentally change your economics almost overnight. Taxation can shift. Advertising rules can tighten. Entire product verticals can disappear or emerge within a few years – or a few months in some cases.
So the real question is not whether companies should pursue emerging markets. The real question is how they define a long-term regional strategy, and how emerging markets fit within it.
That strategic framework is one of the most important pillars in any gaming company. Before discussing individual territories, operators need to answer several core questions. How many markets do we want to operate in? Do we want to be a podium player in a small number of jurisdictions, or a second-tier operator spread across dozens of countries? Do we grow deeper, or wider? Do we focus on markets where we already understand the culture, customer behaviour, payments, and regulation, or do we venture into completely new territories?
Those decisions shape everything that follows.
Some companies are extremely disciplined. They define five core markets and decide to defend the top-three positions there for the next decade. Others pursue expansion aggressively, chasing higher margins and new customer acquisition opportunities globally. Then there are companies trying to do both simultaneously, which is often where execution becomes difficult.
Learning lessons from the US
Emerging markets are attractive, but they are also distracting. They require significant investment, management attention, local knowledge, operational flexibility, and patience. A strong European operator entering Brazil, for example, is not simply replicating a successful playbook. They are entering a completely different ecosystem with different consumer psychology, payment infrastructure, regulation, marketing dynamics, and competitive behaviour.
Most importantly, emerging markets are long-term investments. Operators frequently underestimate this. You typically enter with zero revenue and several years of negative cash flow ahead of you. In many regulated markets, reaching operational breakeven can take two to five years. Full return on investment takes longer still.
The US is a perfect example. Many operators viewed the repeal of PASPA as the biggest opportunity in recent gambling industry history. European operators believed they understood sports betting better than American companies because they had decades of operational experience. What many misread was the scale of investment required and the strength of local brands.
Companies like DraftKings and FanDuel became dominant because they were already native American gaming brands. They understood the customer, the media ecosystem, and the economics of customer acquisition in the US – they had very deep pockets and deep databases of players. Even highly sophisticated international operators underestimated how expensive it would be to compete at scale.
That lesson matters globally. Market opportunity alone is not enough. Operators also need to assess whether they have the right product, people, capital structure, and cultural understanding to succeed.
Going from grey to white
There are other huge markets, where a new regulatory system promises some semblance of stability, but the potential to win market share will depend greatly on what came before.
Take Brazil, for example. By the time the regulation formally arrived, the market was already heavily established. Brands such as Betano, Sportingbet, and bet365 had already built major positions during the grey-market phase. When regulation came, those incumbents simply strengthened their dominance.
This is a recurring pattern globally. In markets transitioning from grey to regulated, operators that established brand recognition and customer trust early often retain those advantages after licensing frameworks are introduced. The first-mover advantage becomes extremely difficult and expensive to overcome later.
Latin America overall has now moved from “early emerging” to “maturing emerging.” Colombia, Argentina, Peru, and Brazil all have increasingly developed regulatory structures. The opportunity remains substantial, but the economics have changed. Entering today requires deeper pockets, longer investment horizons, and realistic expectations about market share.
The Middle East is entirely different. The opportunity there is potentially enormous, particularly in the UAE, but it is also highly political and protectionist. Regulatory frameworks are emerging, largely tied to broader tourism and hospitality ambitions, including major land-based casino developments.
However, operators need to understand the cultural and political context. These are not open competitive markets in the traditional sense. Access, partnerships, and local relationships will matter enormously. In many cases, the more realistic opportunities may sit with suppliers, lotteries, or B2B infrastructure providers rather than direct-to-consumer operators.
Asia remains the industry’s great long-term prize. In terms of scale, it is arguably the largest untapped gaming opportunity globally. Markets such as China, Indonesia, India, Thailand, Japan, the Philippines, and others continue exploring various forms of legalisation and regulation.
But Asia is also a lesson in patience. Companies have been anticipating large-scale regulatory opening across parts of Asia for 20 years. Operators serious about the region should not necessarily expect immediate revenue opportunities. Instead, they should focus on long-term positioning: building relationships, understanding local consumer behaviour, participating in regulatory dialogue, and developing regional expertise ahead of market openings.
Africa, meanwhile, is one of the most misunderstood growth stories in global gaming.
The mistake many outsiders make is treating Africa as a single market. It is not. It is more than 50 highly diverse markets with different languages, regulations, payment systems, customer behaviours, and levels of economic development.
South Africa is already relatively mature and resembles more traditional Western markets. Elsewhere, countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, and Tanzania offer enormous populations and rapidly growing digital adoption. But they also require highly localized operating models.
Customer behaviour in many African markets differs significantly from Europe. Betting is heavily football-driven, with strong preference for large accumulator bets at low stake values. Mobile payments dominate. Products must function effectively on lower-bandwidth networks and older devices. Operational complexity is also higher, with varying tax regimes, currency restrictions, and evolving regulation.
From the outside, Africa can appear like an easy growth story. In reality, it is operationally demanding and highly localized. That is why many of the continent’s successful operators are regional specialists rather than global brands.
The broader lesson across all emerging markets is that growth is not simply about entering new territories. It is about strategic fit.
Perhaps Alberta, Canada, Finland and New Zealand are the most attractive grey-transitioning-to-white opportunities for many operators. Finland, particularly, has strong incumbents – largely from Nordic neighbours – and the Ontario experience will provide the model for many of those entering Alberta. New Zealand is a clearer playing field but the authorities are not looking favourably on those who have taken advantage of the lack of regulations.
These markets will all look familiar to experienced operators but which ones provide the best strategic fit for you? Where do you possess long-term advantages, and are you willing to be patient and commit capital over a number of years? Geographic expansion is vital for any business – but millions of dollars have been wasted on strategic misadventures. Do your homework and plan with care.
If you only take one thing from this article, it should be the importance of timing. Getting into a market early, creating brand familiarity, and learning about the jurisdiction and its consumers will increase your likelihood of success dramatically.
