As mentioned earlier, the Vietnamese gambling market has shown steady growth in recent years, and the government is gradually opening up the gambling industry.

With the continuous activity of the gray market, Vietnam is becoming one of the most potential gambling markets in Southeast Asia.

In this context, we analyzed the five most popular types of gambling games in Vietnam, among which the launch of real money poker games has become the focus of the industry.

Although online gambling is still in a gray area in Vietnam, card games such as poker, with their unique competitiveness and entertainment, are gradually emerging in the Vietnamese market, bringing new growth opportunities for gambling operators.

Therefore, this article will focus on local poker games in Vietnam, analyzing the marketing strategies for the Vietnamese market—what kind of channels and advertising materials can achieve excellent results in this market for Vietnamese players?

I. Portrait of Vietnamese Target Players

Vietnam, as an important economy in Southeast Asia, has shown significant growth in the gaming market in recent years.

According to 2023 data, the total in-app purchase revenue in the Vietnamese mobile game market reached $202 million, with 1.643 billion downloads, showing a huge overall market size.

As mentioned earlier, Vietnam has a very high internet penetration rate, with 93.1% of internet users playing games, including more than 60 million mobile gamers, demonstrating the high acceptance of game content in the Vietnamese market.

Firstly, advertising strategies need to precisely target the audience. According to market research, the target user group for real money games in Vietnam has the following characteristics:

The average age in Vietnam is 32.7 years, with a relatively young population structure, 52% of the population is under 35 years old, and young users are also the main users in this region.

Given the high acceptance of games by Vietnamese users, their willingness to pay within games is also strong, especially in card games like poker, where users are willing to pay for virtual items or services in the game.

Therefore, even ordinary reward-type welcome ads can attract most Vietnamese players.

It is worth noting that due to the high penetration rate of mobile devices in Vietnam, Vietnamese players are more inclined to play games on mobile phones. According to Statista data, mobile games account for more than 90% of the Vietnamese gaming market.

At the same time, the number of social media users in Vietnam has reached 76.95 million, with an average daily social media usage time of 2 hours and 28 minutes, meaning that social media users can almost completely cover the number of gamers in Vietnam.

Vietnamese users commonly use social networking platforms like Facebook, where Facebook's advertising coverage in Vietnam is equivalent to 71.4% of the country's total population.

Combining the above analysis, Vietnamese players are concentrated in the young user group of 18 to 35 years old, and advertising through social media platforms such as Facebook can effectively reach the target users and increase user engagement.

Gender-wise, both male and female players are interested in real money poker games, but male users may be more inclined towards the competitive and strategic elements of the game, while female users may focus more on the social and entertainment aspects of the game.

This is completely consistent with the proportion of Facebook users, where females account for 50.7% and males 49.3% of the advertising audience.

Geographically, major cities in Vietnam such as Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi are the main markets, similar to other regions, where cities usually have better network infrastructure, users generally have higher purchasing power and more frequent internet usage habits.

The above is the player portrait of real money poker games in Vietnam, covering 60 million urban residents aged 18-35, and the next step is to find the right channels for placement.

II. Channel Selection for Placement

Since Facebook is the social platform with the most users in Vietnam, channel placement on Facebook is the most important.

The audience targeting feature of the Facebook advertising platform allows advertisers to precisely target based on the characteristics of the target audience.

Using Facebook's advertising targeting tools, ads can be precisely targeted based on factors such as age, gender, geographical location, and interests.

An important point here is that since Vietnamese users have a strong social nature, encouraging users to share and comment on ad content on Facebook can enhance the social impact of the ads.

Alternatively, a reward mechanism can be set up, such as receiving in-game rewards for sharing ads, which Vietnamese players are very keen on and willing to complete this type of social sharing.

In addition to Facebook, ads can also be placed on other social media platforms such as TIKTOK or Instagram, using the characteristics of different platforms to attract different user groups.

According to statistics, TIKTOK is the third most popular platform in Vietnam after Facebook and Instagram, with 39.91 million users aged 18 and above on TikTok.

Another platform is YouTube, which has 62.5 million users in Vietnam. However, compared to Facebook users, more than half of YouTube users are male.

On this platform, the most searched content is mostly related to music, so the actual number of gamers may be less than the three platforms mentioned above.

In summary, Facebook, Instagram, TIKTOK, and YouTube are all good platforms for placement in the Vietnamese market, and they can all handle video ads, which fits very well with the preferences of Vietnamese players.

Since Vietnamese players prefer real-person advertising materials, video can more directly motivate them to download games, which we will delve into later in the material placement section.

In summary, these four common social platforms, because they encompass a large number of online users in Vietnam, and their user ratios and portraits are very similar to Vietnamese gamers, they will all be good channels for placement.

But focusing only on these traditional channels, the competition in the industry will also be very intense. During the placement process, simultaneously opening up relatively niche, but effective channels is the best solution.

PASA has also summarized the following for everyone:

1. Placement on Vietnamese Movie and Porn Sites

Many movie sites are mostly personal webmasters, and their movie resource interfaces are provided by various film slicing companies. These types of movies include variety shows, movies, TV dramas, etc., which are the most common types of advertising placements.

However, the cost of film slicing is generally high, and the user group targeted by widespread publicity is not precise enough. Therefore, the text content and video advertising content of this type of promotion are generally tailored towards conversion, such as using celebrity effects, encouraging recharge rebates, or giving rewards.

In addition to this, there is placement on porn sites. As the saying goes, gambling and pornography go hand in hand, and website ad placement in this type of promotion is the most direct and simple.

The conversion rate of users on porn sites is generally higher than that of movie sites, but it is also not possible to achieve precise targeting, and it is generally a widespread approach.

However, this type of website ad placement can find ad networks to buy on a CPA basis, and negotiate a CPA price with the other party. This type of cost control is also relatively flexible, and the source of users can be tracked.

2. Placement on Vietnamese Dating Apps

The download volume of dating apps in Vietnam is second only to games, videos, and social apps.

At the same time, a survey report by Decision Lab shows that in Vietnam, 65% of people have used dating apps. Among them, Tinder is the most popular dating app, accounting for about 22%.

In terms of usage frequency, Vietnamese people use dating apps very frequently, with nearly 30% using them every day, 19% using them 2-3 times a day, and 15% using them 6-7 times a week.

From this data, it can be seen that it is easy to find high-quality user groups in dating apps. You can create your own IP persona, open a premium membership on dating apps, and the dating app will continuously recommend users to you.

With the recommendation of traffic, you can gradually convert users to your private domain traffic through step-by-step communication with users.

However, the registration conversion cycle of dating app promotion is uncertain, and it requires dedicated personnel to follow up and interact, requiring dedicated personnel to maintain account activity, which is a somewhat troublesome but precise promotion method.

After the channels are determined, the advertising materials are what we need to focus on.

III. Local Advertising Materials in Vietnam

As mentioned earlier, real-person video materials are particularly popular in the Vietnamese market, so they are also the first choice for many manufacturers when making materials.

Real-person performance materials have a high production output rate, and a few people with simple filming equipment can create many different plot materials, and real-person performance materials have always been very attractive to users.

Among them, real-person materials can be divided into several types: KOL type, commentary type, and plot type.

The plot type is the most used among them. After watching many Vietnamese game ads, PASA found that plot-oriented and commentary-type materials are the two most favorite routines of advertisers.

The advantage of plot-type materials is that they can get more users to watch the entire ad completely. Even users who usually don't know much about games will continue to learn about the game content because of the plot.

Especially some attractive plots can even create a demand for the game in users, such as this plot where a boyfriend and girlfriend play games together, and the girl keeps praising the boy for winning the card game and getting a big prize, which is irresistible for many Vietnamese players.

In addition, the commentary type is also a common routine. The advantage is that if there is a real person, especially a KOL endorsement, it will naturally make users have a sense of trust in the game, similar to the effect of live streaming with goods, and users will click to download and try because of the herd mentality.

Mainly in 2 forms: veteran player reviews, game host recommendations.

The reason for choosing real-person materials for gambling games is very obvious. The attractive point of gambling games is the ability to obtain monetary rewards, and showing this point in the materials can attract users.

In Vietnam, players also have their own characteristics. Some uncommon niche prizes, such as a motorcycle, can attract users, and beautiful women materials are also equally popular;

And because many advertisers cooperate with porn sites for traffic, there are also many borderline materials.

For Facebook, Tiktok, and Instagram as video traffic aggregation platforms, they are also the platforms with the largest user groups in Vietnam, so using similar video advertising materials can be said to be the most effective.

Of course, it is also possible to pay to contact some existing internet celebrities for cooperative promotion, but the budget will also increase accordingly.

Direct website advertising is a simple and direct method, but website advertising cannot achieve precise targeting of the audience. However, real-person video material ads, although they will increase the placement cost, can attract precise users.

And using high-definition video visual elements, as well as Vietnamese-language advertising copy, using familiar elements in Vietnamese culture, such as traditional clothing, festivals, etc., can increase the attractiveness of the ads, which is also what needs to be done to enter different regional markets for localization.​

Conclusion

In summary, for friends who want to enter the Vietnamese gambling game market, in addition to traditional promotion, specific website and dating app traffic is also a good way, and for traditional channels, using real-person material videos, combined with elements such as special prizes and beautiful women, is the most suitable entry point for the Vietnamese market.

PASA has been working in the industry for many years, and believes that PASA's advice will be your best choice for expanding the Vietnamese market!

The gambling nature of the Vietnamese people and their addiction to games have established Vietnam's important market position in the East Asian South gambling market.

As long as the marketing content is well done, then we will be able to easily develop a large number of customers in Vietnam.

We look forward to discussing more unique insights about the Vietnamese market with our readers, and we sincerely invite you to follow the global iGaming leader's overseas information platform PASA to get more first-hand industry information.

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