The 2026 FIFA World Cup, co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, is on track to become the largest sports betting event in history, with industry analysts projecting total global betting revenue will surge past the $50 billion mark — far outstripping the totals from the 2022 Qatar edition of the quadrennial football tournament.
Two key factors are driving this unprecedented betting boom, according to Darren Small, Managing Director of Managed Trading Services at global sports technology firm Sportradar. First, the tournament has undergone a major expansion, growing from 32 competing nations to 48, creating far more matches, markets, and betting opportunities for enthusiasts worldwide. Second, shifting betting habits among modern punters have opened up massive new revenue streams that did not exist at previous World Cups.
Gone are the days when most bettors only placed simple wagers on which team would win a match, Small explained. Today, a growing share of interest centers on player-specific props and customizable betting options, often called bet builders, that let fans craft unique wagers tailored to their expectations of a game. These can range from simple bets on whether a star player will score, to more complex combinations that include the number of corners, tackles, passes, or even which foot a player will score with. “Customers are building out entire narratives for their bets,” Small noted in an interview with Agence France-Presse. “They might combine a bet on X team winning with both teams scoring, player Y scoring a header, and over 15 total corners in the match.” This segment has already become a major driver of growth for the industry.
David Stevens, head of public relations for leading UK bookmaker Coral, echoed this assessment, calling custom bet building “one of the fastest growing areas of our business.” The trend, he added, caters perfectly to a new, younger demographic of bettors who crave more dynamic, engaging wagering opportunities rather than traditional straight win/lose bets.
As early betting flows in, two defending champions top the list of most-backed teams: 2022 winner Argentina and 2018 winner France hold the largest share of early wagers placed through Sportradar’s network of 250 global sports book clients. England, which has not won the World Cup since 1966, remains a fan favorite, sitting third in early odds behind France and Spain. Should England end the 60-year title drought, Stevens noted, bookmakers face a sizeable payout — though the increasingly global nature of the industry means an England win would be far less costly than it would have been a decade ago.
In the race for the Golden Boot, awarded to the tournament’s top scorer, the bulk of early bets have gone to global superstars Kylian Mbappe of France and Erling Haaland of Norway. Small told AFP that more than 20 percent of early Golden Boot betting volume through Sportradar has been placed on Haaland alone. But one unexpected name has crept into the top 10 of early betting that has left analysts amused rather than alarmed: Ben Waine, a striker for recently relegated fourth-tier English club Port Vale, who qualified for the tournament with New Zealand. “It’s really strange, as in peculiar not sinister,” Small said of the unexpected run of bets on Waine.
Industry leaders do note one logistical challenge posed by the 2026 co-hosting format: the wide geographical spread of match venues across North America has created tricky kickoff times for European audiences, particularly for matches held on the U.S. West Coast, which will fall in the middle of the night for most European viewers. Even so, growing betting activity in South America, led by traditional football powerhouse Brazil, is expected to offset any dip from European viewership challenges.
For the host nation the United States, early betting interest on a U.S. title run remains low, with 40-1 odds of an American upset victory. Stevens even joked that if the U.S. did defy the odds to lift the trophy, former president and current 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump would likely demand a spot in the trophy-lifting celebrations: “Should the USA defy odds of 40-1 and lift the trophy, expect very short odds about the President being at the centre of the celebrations!”