Online betting companies are launching new live betting options and luring punters with promotions ahead of the World Cup, as they fight to stop prediction markets from snatching up the “biggest betting opportunity” in history.
The 2026 World Cup, which begins on June 11, is an expanded 48-team tournament held in the United States, Canada and Mexico. There will be 104 matches over 39 days, compared to 64 games in the previous edition four years ago.
In an interview, Flutter CEO Peter Jackson hailed the tournament as “the biggest betting opportunity we’ve ever seen”, while Jason Robins, head of rival DraftKings, said it would be “a huge focal point for customer acquisition”.
But this World Cup is the first to take place since prediction market operators Polymarket and Kalshi made rapid advances in global betting markets.
These forecasting companies sell “yes or no” contracts on various events. It is possible to guess about football games, the final of a reality show, a celebrity’s wedding date and even the result of an election. The buyer receives a sum if his guess is correct or loses if he is wrong.
To differentiate themselves from conventional betting sites, prediction market companies argue that bonuses for those who guess correctly are based on the amounts invested, like on a stock market. Securities can be traded at any time.
In the case of bets, the price can be determined by the houses themselves or fluctuate with the market, as happens in prediction markets.
The two biggest operators of prediction markets now make most of their revenue from sports betting. Bets on the winner of the next World Cup are already among the largest on record for prediction markets, with the total value of contracts bought and sold on the champion reaching almost US$1.5 billion (R$7.6 billion) on Polymarket to date.
The rapidly expanding popularity of these platforms, which are able to bypass U.S. state sports betting bans because they are considered derivatives markets, is putting pressure on traditional betting companies to recruit and retain customers.
For some of its brands, Flutter, which owns Paddy Power and FanDuel, plans to introduce a new gamified interface ahead of the World Cup that allows punters to place live bets on which area of the goal the penalty takers will shoot from.
The group is also expanding promotions for lucrative multiple bets — known as “accumulators” in the UK and “parlays” in the US — that offer a big payout if a series of bets pays off.
But prediction markets now increasingly facilitate their own version of multiple bets, known as “combos”, raising fears they will take market share in one of the industry’s most lucrative segments.
In a move to attract customers in the US, Flutter will also offer 120-minute markets that include extra time and segment matches into shorter “microbetting” intervals, a popular feature in American football and basketball betting.
DraftKings, for its part, launched a Spanish version of its product in time for the World Cup. DraftKings and FanDuel now also offer prediction markets on their own platforms, using geolocation data to ensure the apps work even in states that ban sports betting.
BetMGM CEO Adam Greenblatt argued on an earnings call in April that the ability to offer special offers and rewards such as free bets is part of online sports betting’s superior “product experience” compared to prediction markets.
But some industry executives fear that the intensifying competition for customers could turn against betting companies.
“Historically, there has been a lot of wasteful spending in the sector [em torno da Copa do Mundo] because it’s seen as a huge customer acquisition opportunity,” said an executive at a major online betting company. He predicted that this trend could be exacerbated this time “because everyone is so worried about prediction markets.”
While the expanded World Cup offers more betting opportunities, it could also complicate bookmakers’ ability to set profitable odds, in part due to a dearth of performance data from some countries. Cape Verde, Curaçao, Jordan and Uzbekistan are making their World Cup debuts.
Entain CEO Stella David warned in a results update in March that while the World Cup is “great for volumes”, the tournament’s extended format could result in “margins swinging wildly because there will be high-scoring games and elastic scores”.
Jackson said that as “a deeply patriotic person” he was rooting for England to win. He admitted, however, that for Flutter this could be a costly outcome.
