Paraguay

Paraguay is the most actionable near-term opening in Latin America, because it has just dismantled its long-standing betting monopoly, and an operator should read it as a tender to prepare for. A 2025 gambling law, implemented by decree, replaced the old single-concession model with controlled competition that allows up to three concessionaires per vertical, and the regulator CONAJZAR was restructured as a decentralised body under the national tax directorate. The strategic point is that Paraguay is opening, the route in is a government tender, and the operators who prepare now are positioned for the 2026 sports-betting round.

The monopoly is being unwound prospectively. Online sports betting has long sat exclusively with a single concessionaire whose concession runs until 2028, and the reform does not cancel that, it opens additional slots alongside it. On the president's instruction, a public tender in 2026 is expected to admit further operators, ending exclusivity, and the lottery vertical has already seen multiple concessions awarded. So the opening is real and underway, but it is staged, and the incumbent keeps its position until its concession lapses.

The route in is a tender, not an open licence. Because the model is controlled competition with a capped number of concessionaires per vertical, an operator does not simply apply, it bids for one of the limited slots through the tax directorate and CONAJZAR. That makes tender strategy and timing the core of a Paraguay entry, and an operator serious about the market needs to be ready for the 2026 round rather than reacting to it after the fact.

The execution risk is real. Reporting on the new concession process has flagged that it may be subject to the same opacity and problems as the old regime, so an operator should underwrite for tender-process uncertainty rather than assuming a clean, transparent competition. The market is also small in absolute terms, with sports betting estimated in the tens of millions of dollars, so the prize should be sized realistically against the cost and effort of winning a concession.

What winning looks like. Winning in Paraguay looks like positioning for the 2026 sports-betting tender now, with a credible bid and a localised proposition, while underwriting for the opacity of the process and the modest size of the market. The operators who do well treat the tender as the entry mechanism and prepare for it deliberately, rather than waiting for an open licensing regime that the controlled-competition model is not going to provide.

The regional play. Paraguay sits among the smaller Southern Cone markets near Argentina and Brazil, and it suits operators building a regional presence who can pursue a concession for a modest but genuinely opening market. How it fits a LatAm sequence is part of the multi-market sequencing piece.

The biggest mistake. The biggest mistake is missing the 2026 tender window by treating Paraguay as an open-licence market you can enter any time, when entry is through capped concessions awarded by tender. The related mistake is over-sizing a small market or assuming a clean process. Prepare for the tender now, size the prize realistically, and underwrite for the process opacity the reform has not fully resolved.