Bumper World Cup tipped to smash betting records

SANTA CLARA, California, June 25 : The 2026 World Cup is already setting sports gambling records before the knockout stage has even begun, with an increased number of teams and market-favourable kickoff times raising industry expectations that it could become the all-time biggest betting event.

The expanded 48-nation, 104-match World Cup is set to far surpass betting volumes of the 2022 tournament in Qatar, according to some industry leaders and experts, helped by more regulated gambling, deeper product offerings and the scale of the business in co-host the United States.

Flutter Entertainment, whose brands include FanDuel, Paddy Power, Betfair, Sisal, Sportsbet and Sky Bet, said that, beyond the U.S., the larger tournament meant greater engagement in markets where it has a strong presence, including Britain, Spain, Brazil, Australia and Canada. 

"We're expecting the World Cup to be the biggest betting event of all time given the extended format as well as the benefit of it being partly hosted in our key market, the U.S.," a Flutter spokesperson said. 

The world's largest online betting company expects to have around 10 million customers across its different platforms and to manage 100,000 bets per minute globally at peak World Cup moments. 

"Overall, we expect staking to be at least double what we experienced in Qatar."  

BRAZIL, US OPENERS SET RECORDS

Macquarie forecasts total World Cup wagers above $50 billion globally, beating the $35 billion for the 2022 edition. A key driver of the increase is the changing regulatory landscape in the U.S., where access to legal betting has risen to 65 per cent of the population from around 40 per cent in 2022. 

Reuters contacted some of the world's biggest sports betting firms,