Case study - First.

Momentum. Customer Success in Action.

Cactus

Stories:

Case Study

Localized Performance

The Story.

Latin America didn’t need another sportsbook. It needed one built for it. Cactus Gaming – a top iGaming tech provider with 50+ operators in Brazil and beyond. They had the platform, the scale and the local trust. And sportsbook layers? Too slow. Too rigid. Too generic. Enter FIRST.

The Brief.

Cactus came to FIRST with one mission, “Give our operators a real sportsbook advantage in Brazil and LATAM.” Here’s what wasn’t cutting it:

Time-to-market delays
European UX shoehorned into local habits
Risk systems not tuned for LATAM football traffic
Uptime crumbling during peak moments

Operators were ready to scale. Their sportsbook tech wasn’t.

FIRST didn’t tweak. It rebuilt..

Together, we embedded a high-performance sportsbook layer directly into Cactus’ proven ecosystem – tailored for the exact conditions of Brazil regulation, bettor behaviour and payment infrastructure. What we focused on:

Portuguese
Native
UX Design

Ultra-Fast
Brazilian Football Flow
for Live Betting

Scalable Odds,
Trading Modules
and Risk

Full Backend
Stability
Across Brands

The Difference It Made

60% Faster
Go-To-Market

+35% GGR
Uplift for
Early Adopters

Higher In-Play
Conversion
(faster refresh, faster cashout)

Increased
Session Depth

99.99% Uptime
During National
Peaks

20% Raise
in VIP Players

FIRST delivered exactly what we needed:
performance, localisation and a sportsbook that
scales under real market pressure.

Tiago Lima, CEO, Cactus Gaming

Why It Worked?

This wasn’t a supplier-developer deal. It was a strategic match.

Cactus understands LATAM from the inside
FIRST builds from the ground up, not top down
Together, we delivered control, speed and measurable growth

Cactus understands LATAM at an operational level.
Together, we’ve built a sportsbook layer that gives operators the speed,
control and reliability this region demands.

Tom Light, CEO, FIRST.

The Takeaway.

If you’re building for Brazil, build with Brazil. The FIRST x Cactus partnership is more than integration – it’s infrastructure built for one of the most demanding betting markets in the world. And it’s raising the bar for what a true Tier-1 sportsbook should feel like across Brazil.