Wynta recently had the privilege of speaking with Viviana Luzardo, a Commercial Team Lead in the iGaming industry with over six years of experience driving business growth across LATAM and North America. She has led high-performing teams at two of the industry’s largest affiliate networks, Gambling.com Group and Better Collective, where she has built strategic partnerships and performance marketing initiatives with top-tier operators.
With a background in organizational communication, she brings a sharp understanding of how to align internal teams with external market demands. She also has a strong affinity for software and technology, which has allowed her to streamline operations, optimize affiliate ecosystems and develop a custom compliance solution tailored to the dynamic iGaming space: Buffcomply.
The LATAM Frontier: Building Trust from Scratch
When discussing the key differences between launching affiliate operations in LATAM versus more established markets, Viviana emphasized the paramount importance of the “cultural layer.” She explained, “In LATAM, you’re not just launching a strategy, you’re building trust from scratch.” This involves directly addressing misconceptions about affiliation, which can sometimes be mistaken for pyramid schemes. Clear communication, demonstrating credibility and genuinely understanding local dynamics are crucial.
Structurally, she highlighted variations in commission models: “Revenue Share isn’t always well-received, so part of the onboarding process involves educating partners on its long-term value, particularly the importance of data transparency.” She also noted that contracts are often generic, lacking crucial campaign-specific details, necessitating close collaboration with partners to build these frameworks from the ground up. In contrast, mature markets offer clearer rules of engagement and stronger relationships, but also face fiercer competition. “In LATAM, you’re pioneering, building systems, setting standards and often laying the foundation for how affiliation is perceived and regulated,” Viviana stated.
Compliance: The Backbone of Market Opportunity
For Viviana, “There’s no market opportunity without compliance. Full stop.” She stressed that regulation cannot be an afterthought and must be the backbone of any go-to-market strategy. Ignoring it is a significantly bigger risk, even if adapting to it adds cost and complexity. “You need legal, financial and operational readiness from Day One,” she asserted.
The finalization of Brazil’s market regulation in 2024 significantly impacted expansion strategies and affiliate ecosystem development. Viviana described it as a complete transformation: “Brazil went from a massive opportunity with relatively few rules to a tightly regulated market with real constraints.” This shift forced teams to rethink operations, budgets, and deal structures overnight. Performance also suffered due to user migration and unreliable data.
A major consequence was the need to re-sign contracts with newly licensed Brazilian entities, leading to new negotiations with updated legal and commercial terms. Operators with an early advantage were those who launched their regulated operations from day one, avoiding complex issues like KYC verification and data migration setbacks. While some operators adapted quickly, others were caught off guard. Viviana concluded, “Brazil post-regulation is a completely different playing field with new strategies, new partners, and new margins. It’s no longer business as usual.”
The most common compliance bottleneck Viviana encountered is a lack of clarity. “Guidelines are often vague or incomplete. Tax rules can be ambiguous,” she noted. This creates an uneven playing field, where some partners comply while others don’t, often benefiting those operating in the black market due to a lack of enforcement. She cited Mexico’s SEGOB regulation, which targets land-based casinos but offers no clarity on online operations, as an example. This uncertainty slows everything down and undermines long-term trust.
Brazil serves as a prime example of a commercially attractive market presenting regulatory challenges. “On paper, it ranks among the world’s most promising markets, and it still does: betting sites are its second-most visited online destination (Olhar Digital, 2025),” Viviana explained. However, regulatory demands, such as requiring a local entity to process payments, are significant barriers. Operating in the volatile Brazilian real also complicates forecasting and ROI modeling. She also mentioned the sweepstakes model in the US, which initially offered fantastic commissions but is now facing rapid regulatory catch-up. A landmark disruption in the US iGaming landscape was Crypto.com’s simultaneous regulation across all states, an approach starkly different from the traditional, state-by-state rollout of iGaming rules.
Adapting to Emerging Compliance Trends and Leveraging Technology
For Viviana, who focuses on numbers and rapid execution, “Speed only works if you’ve already done the homework.” Before entering any market, significant investment in market intelligence, legal, financial and operational due diligence is essential. If a market aligns with company goals, full commitment is required, involving structural adjustments, setting up local entities, hiring region-specific talent, and integrating compliance into every layer of the business. “It’s not just marketing, it’s infrastructure,” she affirmed.
Commercial teams should prepare for several emerging compliance trends that are already shaping the next phase. Some of these are bans on terms like “free bet” (e.g., Ohio); restrictions on deposit-based bonuses (e.g., Ontario and Brazil); prohibitions on using athletes or certain influencers in ads; licensing requirements for third-party marketers (e.g., New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan); and specific compliance frameworks tailored to affiliates, including potential restrictions on Revenue Share in some markets (e.g., New York and Kentucky). Viviana stressed the importance of building adaptable systems and training teams proactively.
Viviana believes that having the right affiliate management technology is “absolutely essential” for maintaining compliance while scaling across LATAM markets. Without it, she warns, “you’re flying blind.” The opacity of some LATAM operators regarding data makes a robust platform vital for visibility into GGR, deductions, deposits and turnover, which is crucial for both strategic growth and regulatory compliance. She specifically noted that “Platforms like Wynta have been game-changers for affiliates and operators looking to scale responsibly in the region.”
The compliance challenges Viviana encountered in her operational role led to the development of Buffcomply, demonstrating how real-world pain points can drive innovation. “As an affiliate partner, I was overwhelmed with operator requests to remove expired bonuses, update misleading terms and ensure every logo and tagline matched exact brand guidelines. Off-the-shelf tools could not keep pace, so I built Buffcomply. Buffcomply automates the repetitive monitoring tasks that once consumed entire afternoons, delivering end-to-end visibility into which partners are prioritizing our brand and how they perform.”
Key features include:
- A geo-targeted discovery engine for identifying high-value affiliates
- Proactive compliance assurance for identifying expired offers and non-compliant content
- Competitive benchmarking to compare rankings and promotions
- Affiliate attribution intelligence to track visits and conversions to their true source
“What began as my personal answer to hundreds of operator demands has become the scalable engine that keeps compliance smooth and growth unstoppable across LATAM, and highly regulated markets,” Viviana concluded.
Viviana’s insights make one thing clear: in LATAM, success comes not just from ambition but from adaptability, trust-building and infrastructure that puts compliance at the core. Her experience, rooted in deep market knowledge and tech-forward execution, offers a roadmap for any affiliate manager, operator or commercial team looking to expand responsibly in dynamic markets.
Ready to Level Up Your Affiliate Operations?
In our brilliant chat with Viviana, she has fantastically proven that success in LATAM and beyond boils down to operational discipline, cultural fluency and the right technology.
If you’re interested in seeing how Wynta can help you scale your affiliate programs profitably in new or regulated markets, contact us for a demo or to request more information today. Your next strategic advantage is one conversation away.
