Alessandro Valente says SiGMA Norteamérica completes the vision for the Americas

Latin America has moved from “promising” to operational, with Brazil’s regulated market under Law 14.790 in January 2025 marking the shift. For PSPs, acquirers, and banks, the part that matters is the mix of regulation, mobile-first demand, Pix, and a heavier focus on compliance and responsible gambling.

1. Valente says the region is no longer being discussed only as an upside story. Brazil’s regulated market under Law 14.790 in January 2025 turned Latin America into an industry that is “operational, supervised and taxed,” with attention now split between growth, governance, technology innovation, and long-term sustainability.
2. He describes SiGMA’s role as structural rather than cosmetic. After joining Brazilian iGaming Summit with SiGMA Group, the platform became, in his words, one of the industry’s most important venues for dialogue between regulators, lawmakers, operators, and providers. For payment companies, that matters because the conversation is now about building legitimate regulated markets, not just chasing volume.
3. On the global and regional trends shaping the business, Valente puts AI near the top of the list. He says it has moved from a competitive edge to a standard expectation, now used for personalization, retention, compliance, and responsible gambling monitoring.
4. He also says Latin America is fundamentally mobile-first, which means operators that do well are the ones that design for mobile from the start. Payments sit in the middle of that shift: Pix in Brazil changed user expectations by introducing instant, frictionless transactions and set a new standard for the continent.
5. Valente adds that live gaming and social experiences continue to outperform fully automated products, because players are increasingly looking for entertainment rather than simple transactions. He also flags responsible gambling and illegal-market suppression as the industry’s most significant current commitments, saying self-exclusion, affordability checks, and proactive monitoring are now better tools for identifying problematic play.

His read on regulation is blunt enough to be useful for anyone in payments: excessive taxation or prohibition does not remove demand, it pushes it into unregulated channels. That is why, in his view, stronger compliance is a sign of a healthier, more mature market.