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Fan Index Reveals: The MOST Popular Gaming Character of ALL TIME

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The most popular gaming character is Mario, receiving a whopping 451 points from the fan index
In second place is Sonic the Hedgehog with 394 points, receiving a staggering 59,700,700 Google searches in the last year
Legend of Zelda’s Link lands third place with 377 points, holding the largest number of Reddit mentions
The least popular gaming character is Jack from BioShock with just 48 points!

We’ve spent a lot of time at home, getting to know our favourite video games more than ever before, falling even more in love with a whole range of gaming characters. However, there is plenty of debate about which characters are the nations’ favourite!

With this in mind, experts at Stashbird.com wanted to discover the most popular gaming characters of all time from the best-selling video game franchises*. To thoroughly investigate, Stashbird.com created a gaming fans’ index by analysing the following factors:

Sales of the franchise
Average worldwide searches over the past year
Number of hashtags on Instagram
Number of Reddit mentions
Gamers’ popularity score (survey)

The top 10 most popular characters

Stashbird.com can reveal that in first place, and crowned the most popular gaming character, is Mario with a massive 451 fan index points!

Mario ranked first for franchise sales with a staggering 653,000,000 worldwide copies of Mario games sold, bagging him an easy 100 points. The fun-loving character also ranked sixth for average worldwide searches with 4,606,547 (86 points) in the past year alone! Despite these results, Mario only ranked 10th for popularity, with 45% of gamers choosing him as their ultimate favourite.

Not far behind in second place is Sonic the Hedgehog with 394 points. The extraterrestrial hedgehog ranked second for worldwide searches (59,700,000), giving him 97 points! He was voted the favourite by only 21% of gamers surveyed, however bagged himself 91 points for his 94,300 Reddit mentions.

Link from The Legend of Zelda places third, accumulating 377 points! It is no surprise as the star of the Nintendo series to have ranked top for Reddit mentions (3,920,000) and popularity score (74%), receiving 100 points for both! Interestingly, he ranked lower down for search volumes, with 1,196,200 average searches over the past year.

At number four is Donkey Kong with 354 points, scoring high with 3,930,000 yearly average searches (83 points), 570,000 Instagram hashtags (77 points) and 26,400 Reddit mentions (80 points).

To complete the 10 most popular gaming characters, the results are as follows:
5. Master Chief (Halo) 323 points, Crash (Crash Bandicoot) 323 points, Sora (Kingdom Hearts) 323 points
6. Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy) 314 points
7. Pac-Man (Pac-Man) 308 points
8. Kirby (Kirby) 306 points
9. Geralt of Rivia (The Witcher) 294 points

Closing the top 10 is Ezio Auditore Da Firenze, star of four of the Assassin’s Creed games, with 291 points!

Just making the bottom 10 is Joel Miller, ranking 25th out of a possible 34 places, from the Last of Us. This is not surprising as the franchise only scored 14 points for its 24 million sales. He also scored low on Reddit searches, receiving just 29 points for his 1,670 mentions.

John Marston from Red Dead Redemption and Simon Belmont from Castlevania were both among the least popular with 94 and 74 points, respectively.

Bioshock’s Jack rounds off the bottom 10 list with measly 48 points – a staggering 403 points less than first place contender Mario.

Methodology
1. *Stashbird.com analysed the list of best-selling video game franchises that have sold at least 20 million copies and pulled the most popular/recognised character from each to compile the list of 36 most popular gaming characters of all time.
2. The team then created an index looking at several factors, including sales of the franchise, search volumes using SemRush, the number of Instagram hashtags per character and the number of mentions on Reddit.
3. Finally, to complete the index Stashbird.com surveyed 4,567 gamers worldwide to ask them to vote for their favourite from the list to give each character a popularity score.
4. Games where there is no playable main character were excluded from the list.
5. Stashbird normalised the data by using the PERCENTRANK.INC function in Excel. This function returns the rank of a value in a data set as a percentage of the data set between 0 and 1. These values were then multiplied by 100 to make the range between 0 and 100. The maximum score a character could receive was 500.This enabled the team to rank the 36 characters from most to least popular based on their total points. The data was collected on 29/02/2021 and is correct as of then.

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Sportradar Report | World Cup 2026: Opportunities for the Latin American Sports Betting Market

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With the World Cup set to be the largest edition of the tournament to date, Sportradar has published a new report exploring the opportunities and challenges facing sports betting operators across Latin America.

The report examines how sportsbooks can capitalize on the surge in betting activity expected during the tournament and convert it into long-term customer growth.

Key topics include:

  • The impact of 104 matches across 39 days on betting activity
  • The rise of a new bettor profile seeking personalized and interactive experiences
  • The three pillars of sportsbook success: enhancing the betting experience, fueling fan engagement, and safeguarding market integrity
  • The role of AI in delivering personalized experiences and real-time engagement

Among the report’s findings:

  • An estimated US$50 billion in betting handle globally
  • 60% of consumers plan to bet online or via mobile apps
  • 19% are expected to place their first-ever sports bet during the tournament

We hope you find these insights valuable for soccer’s biggest event.

The report is available here: 

For your reference, here’s the link to our LinkedIn post: linkedin.com/posts/sportradar_sportradarsoccer

The post Sportradar Report | World Cup 2026: Opportunities for the Latin American Sports Betting Market appeared first on Americas iGaming & Sports Betting News.

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Gmonitor.ai

Gmonitor llega a Latinoamérica: la plataforma de inteligencia de mercado para operadores debuta en seis mercados regulados

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Gmonitor amplía su cobertura a Brasil, México, Colombia, Panamá, Perú y Argentina tras su participación en SBC Summit Americas

Gmonitor.ai, la plataforma de inteligencia de mercado para el sector del juego online, anuncia su lanzamiento oficial en los mercados regulados de Latinoamérica. La compañía pone a disposición de los operadores su plataforma en Brasil, México, Colombia, Panamá, Perú y Argentina, llevando a la región la misma inteligencia diaria de mercado, juegos, promociones y competencia que ya utilizan operadores de primer nivel en Europa.

El anuncio se produce tras la participación de Gmonitor en SBC Summit Americas, celebrada en Fort Lauderdale entre el 9 y el 11 de junio, donde la compañía presentó su plataforma a operadores, proveedores y reguladores de toda la región y confirmó el fuerte interés del mercado por herramientas de inteligencia competitiva accionables.

Gmonitor monitoriza a diario los lobbies de los operadores con licencia, sigue la posición y el rendimiento de cada juego, mapea el panorama promocional y consolida datos de mercado en un único panel. El resultado permite a los equipos de marketing, marca, producto, trading y contenido sustituir miles de horas de seguimiento manual por información lista para la toma de decisiones: qué juegos crecen, cómo se mueven los competidores y dónde están las oportunidades de captación y retención.

Latinoamérica es una de las regiones de mayor crecimiento del juego regulado del mundo, pero los operadores siguen tomando decisiones con una visibilidad limitada de lo que ocurre a su alrededor. Llevamos a la región una plataforma ya probada con operadores líderes en Europa.” Hákon Magnússon, COO de Gmonitor

Con cobertura inicial en seis mercados, Gmonitor da servicio tanto a operadores que buscan defender y ganar cuota como a proveedores de juegos que necesitan entender su distribución y posicionamiento frente a la competencia. La compañía tiene previsto seguir ampliando su cobertura a Estados Unidos en las próximas semanas.

 

The post Gmonitor llega a Latinoamérica: la plataforma de inteligencia de mercado para operadores debuta en seis mercados regulados appeared first on Americas iGaming & Sports Betting News.

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André Boesing General Manager for South LatAm at OKTO PAYMENTS

OKTO says Argentina’s provincial rules complicate iGaming payments and operations

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The payments provider points to fragmented licensing and local requirements as operators expand across Argentine jurisdictions in 2026.

OKTO PAYMENTS said the rapid expansion of iGaming across Argentina’s provinces is increasing operational complexity for operators, as each jurisdiction brings distinct regulatory requirements, licensing processes and local commercial dynamics. The company shared its view in a June 2026 statement focused on the country’s multi-jurisdiction framework.

Unlike other Latin American markets with a single national model, Argentina’s provincial approach forces operators to adapt to multiple regulatory environments within one country, OKTO said. The company argued that as the market matures, expectations around transparency, traceability and operational control are also rising.

For years, growth was the industry’s primary objective. Today, the challenge lies in how to scale efficiently in a market where each jurisdiction may present different requirements, expectations, and operational dynamics,” said André Boesing, General Manager for South LatAm at OKTO PAYMENTS.

Boesing added that consumer expectations for consistent user experience can mask the complexity behind the scenes. “Users expect a simple and seamless experience regardless of where they play. But behind that experience lies increasing operational complexity that operators must manage efficiently as they expand into different jurisdictions,” he added.

OKTO said capabilities such as orchestrating deposits and withdrawals, treasury and liquidity management, and efficient settlement processes are becoming more important as operators work with multiple providers and payment methods across provinces. “In many cases, infrastructure goes unnoticed until something goes wrong. However, in highly fragmented markets like Argentina, the ability to manage multiple providers, maintain operational consistency, and adapt quickly to local requirements can become a competitive advantage in itself. At OKTO PAYMENTS, we call this ‘playing a different game’: competing not only through products and services, but also through operational resilience and adaptability,” he explained.

The company concluded that long-term success in Argentina will depend on balancing growth with operational control and adaptability. “The operators best positioned for long-term success will be those capable of combining growth, operational control, and adaptability. Financial infrastructure is no longer simply a technological support layer; it is becoming a strategic advantage in increasingly sophisticated markets,” Boesing concluded.

 

The post OKTO says Argentina’s provincial rules complicate iGaming payments and operations appeared first on Americas iGaming & Sports Betting News.

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