For the sports gambling industry, the World Cup could not have gotten here fast enough.
With growth flattening and competition from prediction markets increasing, online betting sites are finding it more challenging to bring in new customers and inspire their current ones to place more wagers.
The World Cup matches, which started this week across 16 venues in the United States, Mexico and Canada, could be the boost the industry needs to generate new excitement around sports betting. Mexico kicked things off with a win over South Africa on Thursday, and the United States plays Paraguay on Friday night in Los Angeles.
The gambling companies are looking to take advantage of the tournament’s expanded field of 48 teams, prime-time viewing hours and the fact that it will take place in summer, which is usually the quiet season for sports betting.
In the United States alone, $4.4 billion is projected to be wagered with online sports books during the World Cup, according to the research firm Eilers & Krejcik Gaming. That figure is an increase from $1.8 billion during the 2022 tournament.
“That is a lot for a single event or tournament,” said Chris Grove, partner emeritus at Eilers & Krejcik Gaming. “The U.S. has a diverse and dense sport calendar, making it hard for any one event to have an outsized impact.”
Projecting how much will be bet globally is more of a guessing game because there are numerous unregulated markets, but many analysts expect it could reach a record, totaling tens of billions of dollars.
Dan Singer, who leads McKinsey & Company’s Sports and Gaming practice, said the amount of money being bet could reach the level of “eight to 10 Super Bowls.”
FanDuel and DraftKings, which dominate the regulated sports betting market in the United States, are feeling intense competition from prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket. On prediction sites, people can bet on anything from elections to the date of Taylor Swift’s wedding, and increasingly on every aspect of sports.
Jordan Bender, senior equity research analyst at Citizens, said the prediction markets were formidable competition for acquiring new customers at traditional online gambling sites.
Another factor affecting betting volumes: FanDuel and DraftKings have pulled back on promotions that helped fuel their early growth but reduce profits.
“There is a group that spend the free money and go somewhere else,” Mr. Bender said. “So they are cutting out the empty calories.”
Both FanDuel and DraftKings have started their own prediction markets focused on sports and are counting on the World Cup to keep expanding their already booming businesses.
Nearly $12 billion was traded on Kalshi and Polymarket in December, up more than 400 percent from a year earlier, according to data from Piper Sandler, an investment bank.
Kalshi is expanding its World Cup offerings with hundreds of unique markets related to the tournament. Likewise, Polymarket has expanded to nearly 600 unique World Cup offerings. On Thursday, the company said it had already surpassed $2 billion in total trading volume on the World Cup.
Jason Robins, DraftKings’ chief executive, said he had “very high” expectations for World Cup customer acquisition and engagement, especially from DraftKings’ fledgling prediction market site, though he was not sure the games in the earlier qualifying rounds would be big betting events.
“We’re going to really go for it,” Mr. Robins said on the company’s earnings call last month. “I think it will be absolutely tremendous for customer acquisition,” he added.
Betting on prediction markets is conducted through peer-to-peer contracts and regulated by the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission. That allows people to bet on sports through prediction markets in large states such as California, Florida and Texas that have not approved traditional sports betting.
But while the gambling industry sees new opportunities in prediction markets, addiction experts and public health researchers say these platforms can pose a serious threat to problem gamblers because, like sports betting, they offer instant gratification, while using the veneer of financial terminology like “markets” and “contracts.” These experts worry that the prediction markets’ expansion and promotion of gambling opportunities around the World Cup could drive troubled gamblers deeper into financial straits.
Fanatics Sportsbook has an aggressive marketing plan around the World Cup, the site’s first since going national in 2024.
Fanatics’ prediction market business, Fanatics Markets, is teaming up with ADI Predictstreet, the World Cup’s official prediction market site, to create an interactive hub experience for U.S. sports fans.
“We see the World Cup as a big moment for us,” said Michael Fitzsimmons, senior vice president of brand marketing at Fanatics Sportsbook.
The company, which is privately held, is the market leader in team apparel across sports as well as trading cards and collectibles. Mr. Fitzsimmons said soccer was one of its top five sports in betting volume.
“Our data shows that our customers are focused on European soccer and its stars,” he said.
To that end, Fanatics will give away the jerseys of players such as Kylian Mbappé of France, Harry Kane of England and Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal.
Whether the tournament exceeds betting expectations depends on the United States men’s team.
An early U.S. exit would most likely dampen betting activity, while a deeper run would materially amplify media attention and operator marketing, creating a broader funnel for casual betting across the tournament, Mr. Grove of Eilers & Krejcik said.
Fanatics will pay all of its gambling customers $10 for every goal the U.S. team scores throughout the tournament.
“We expect the first U.S.A. match to be five times the handle” of any other team playing in early rounds of the tournament, Mr. Fitzsimmons said.
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