Few leaders manage to turn a single year into a milestone that shapes both personal and corporate trajectory. For Tom Light, 2025 is exactly that. 

Recently named to the 40 Under 40 list and leading FIRST – Best in Sports to win Sportsbook Platform of the Year at the SBC Awards, Light says that the momentum is not just real, it’s accelerating. 

FIRST has also secured its Swedish B2B licence, strengthened strategic alliances with Pixbet, Light & Wonder and Genius Sports and is currently preparing a pipeline of 10 new licences across major regulated markets. The message is clear: this is the era where global technology and local performance are no longer opposites – they’re FIRST’s advantage.

SBC News: What does being named to the 40 Under 40 list mean to you at this stage in your career? 

Tom Light: It’s an honour, but more than anything, it reflects the journey we’re on with FIRST. Recognition like this is never about one individual. It represents the belief and hard work of a team that took an idea and turned it into something with real impact in global sports betting. 

SBC: What makes FIRST’s sportsbook stand out in Brazil and how does it resonate with Brazilian bettors in the newly regulated market? 

TL: Brazil isn’t a market we adapted to. Instead, it’s a market we built around. From the beginning, our sportsbook has been designed with Brazil at the core. We don’t just support Pix; we’re engineered around Pix. We don’t just translate; we align the entire UX with how Brazilians bet, navigate mobile and interact with odds. 

We now have over 35 operators live in Brazil. Many of them launched with us before regulation, and they stayed because the performance is consistent: fast markets, frictionless cashouts, and interfaces that feel native. In a mobile-first market that expects both speed and personality, that combination is crucial. 

SBC: What have you done to personalise and localise your sportsbook in each of the markets you live in? Do you have any examples you can tell us? 

TL: Our approach is LatAm-first, not Europe-adjusted. Every market we enter – Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Argentina – gets its own local roadmap. That includes league prioritisation, cultural UX tweaks and content targeting. 

Across the board, we use behavioural data and AI to personalise recommendations – not just at the account level, but down to the region. That’s why players stay longer, convert faster, and bet more frequently. It feels like a sportsbook made for them – because it is.  

SBC: What contributes to your ‘Tier One product engineering with LatAm-first market thinking’? 

TL: It’s about pairing serious technology with sharp local insight. We have 500+ employees globally, but many of our core product and trading experts are on the ground in LatAm. That gives us constant, real-time feedback loops. 

On the product side, our infrastructure is GLI-33 certified, ISO-audited, with 99.99% uptime. We process millions of transactions per day, with elasticity that handles everything from the World Cup to local derby weekends. That’s tier one. 

But the way we deploy it – through modular APIs, local payment rails and cultural fluency – is what makes it work in LatAm. We don’t just know how to build; we know where we’re building. 

SBC: How does your deep integrations stack work and how does it help your clients transition onto your sportsbook? 

TL: Migration used to be painful in this industry. We’ve changed that. 

Our integrations stack is built on a concept we call Seamless Migration, which allow clients to bring over their tools, data, and front-end components without rebuilding from scratch. Whether an operator wants a full front-end overhaul or to plug into just our odds, trading or cashier – we support it.

SBC: How significant are your partnerships with Genius Sports, Pixbet, Light & Wonder are gaining a lot of attention. How strategic are they for FIRST’s next phase? 

TL: These partnerships are not isolated deals, they are the blueprint for how we want to position FIRST in every regulated market. 

On one side, working with a market defining operator like Pixbet shows that our technology can sit behind brands that carry real cultural weight and huge daily volumes. On another, being integrated with a global distribution and content powerhouse like Light & Wonder gives us reach and access to regulated operators at scale. Genius Sports strengthens the official data and integrity side, ensuring that what we deliver is not only fast and engaging but also compliant and trusted by regulators. 

Put together, these three dimensions create a reference model we can replicate with similar leaders in other regions: a local champion operator, a strong distribution hub and a top tier data and integrity partner. That is the ecosystem where FIRST naturally becomes the sportsbook engine of choice and it is exactly the kind of ecosystem we are building market by market.  

SBC: What are your long-term goals in Brazil and what else can our readers expect to see from FIRST throughout the remainder of 2026? 

TL: In Brazil, our goal is simple: remain the dominant sportsbook partner – not by volume alone, but by quality and longevity. We want to be the sportsbook behind the brands that define regulated sports betting in the country. 

In 2026, you’ll see more of our personalisation engine, more modular innovations like GMFY (gamification), and expansion of our NEXLVL content layer – which is already proving to be a game-changer in Gen Z engagement. 

But above all, we’ll keep doing what’s worked for us in Brazil – building fast, thinking local and delivering technology that drives measurable growth from day one.