Prediction markets account for 27% of World Cup bets: report

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The Backstory

World Cup became a stress test for betting’s next format

The World Cup gave prediction markets the kind of mainstream sports moment that operators, exchanges and their investors had been building toward for more than a year. What began as a financial-style product built around event contracts moved into direct competition with sportsbooks during the tournament, helped by a month of high-frequency matches, global fan interest and a US regulatory structure that lets some platforms reach customers beyond the footprint of legal sports betting.

The reported share of World Cup betting tied to prediction markets is striking because it suggests the category is no longer a peripheral engagement tool. It is becoming a parallel wagering channel. The tournament compressed several industry trends into a single event: rising US betting participation, growing consumer comfort with app-based markets, more granular soccer products and a push by media and commerce companies to merge watching, shopping, fandom and trading into one experience.

That context matters for sportsbooks. Soccer has historically been a lower-volume sport in the US than football or basketball, but the 2026 World Cup was staged across North America and arrived after years of customer acquisition by betting operators. It also came as prediction markets were becoming easier to access through consumer finance and sports platforms, giving users a product that can look like betting while being structured and regulated differently.

Sportsbooks had already primed the market

The World Cup did not create the US appetite for online wagering. It revealed how large and flexible that audience has become. A Siena Research Institute survey found that 27% of Americans had an active online sports betting account, up from about 22% in 2025 and 19% in 2024. The same research found that about one-third of Americans had opened an account at least once.

That expansion gave prediction market operators a broader base of consumers familiar with odds, mobile deposits, props and live-event engagement. The overlap is not perfect: prediction markets use event contracts and exchange-style pricing rather than sportsbook odds. But for many users, the practical experience is similar enough to make switching or experimenting easy, particularly during a tournament with constant fixtures and clear outcomes.

The Siena data also points to the tension behind the growth. Bettors said gambling made sports more exciting and offered a chance to earn money, but many also reported behaviors associated with financial risk, including chasing losses and regretting losses. Those concerns have intensified scrutiny of high-velocity betting products, especially player props and in-play markets. Prediction markets now enter that debate because they can offer sports-linked exposure in places where sportsbooks cannot operate or to users younger than the typical sportsbook minimum age.

Live products made soccer more tradable

The tournament also showed that soccer betting is becoming more granular and more immediate. Kambi, a sports betting technology supplier, said its Bet Builder product accounted for about 20% of all live bets during the World Cup group stage across its network, compared with 3% during the full 2022 tournament. That jump reflected broader demand for customized, in-game products rather than only pre-match wagers on match winners or totals.

Player props became a central part of that shift. Kambi said stars such as Erling Haaland, Lionel Messi, Harry Kane, Kylian Mbappé and Cristiano Ronaldo drove large shares of player prop turnover. The company also highlighted substitution-linked products, a sign of how operators are trying to price and package the full flow of a soccer match, not just goals and final scores.

Prediction markets benefited from the same consumer behavior. A World Cup match offers a sequence of questions that can be turned into markets: who wins, how many goals are scored, which team advances, whether a favorite survives the group stage and how the bracket evolves. For users already conditioned by sportsbooks to interact during games, contracts tied to live or near-live outcomes represented another way to participate.

This convergence is why traditional sportsbooks face pressure. If customers become comfortable trading sports outcomes on exchanges, sportsbook operators may need to offer similar liquidity, pricing transparency or market depth. The risk is not only losing handle on major events. It is losing the most engaged customers, who tend to seek more markets, faster settlement and more control over price.

Media and fan platforms moved before kickoff

The prediction-market surge was not a surprise to companies that positioned products ahead of the tournament. Fanatics Markets and ADI Predictstreet launched a World Cup prediction market hub for US soccer fans, combining markets, live statistics, tournament news and fan content through the Fanatics Markets app and website. The product was designed to meet fans inside a broader commerce and sports ecosystem rather than as a stand-alone betting destination.

That approach reflected Fanatics’ larger advantage: direct relationships with a large base of sports consumers through merchandise, collectibles and betting. For a World Cup, where casual fans may enter the market for a short period, packaging predictions with data and content can reduce friction. It also gives operators more ways to retain users after the final by connecting sports engagement to other parts of the business.

DAZN pursued a similar strategy from the media side. The sports entertainment group partnered with ADI Predictstreet to launch a free-to-play World Cup prediction market experience inside its app, offering real-time predictions, leaderboards and rewards. The free-to-play structure mattered because it introduced prediction mechanics without requiring users to trade real-money contracts.

DAZN’s model also points to where the category may go next. Prediction features can be layered into live broadcasts, highlights, statistics and social competition. Even when no money is at stake, the format trains users to think of sports as a sequence of forecastable events. That creates a pipeline from engagement products to real-money markets where regulation permits.

Finance apps added distribution and liquidity

Consumer finance platforms helped blur the line between trading and sports wagering. Robinhood expanded its World Cup prediction market offering through Rothera, the derivatives exchange in which it and Susquehanna International Group acquired a majority stake. The company said Rothera would handle a large share of tournament contracts, including match outcomes, the overall winner and total goals, as Robinhood broadened its prediction market providers ahead of the World Cup.

The move was significant because Robinhood had previously relied heavily on Kalshi for prediction market access. By routing more contracts through Rothera, Robinhood signaled that sports event contracts are important enough to justify deeper control over supply, liquidity and product economics. The company also said more than 16 billion event contracts had traded on its platform so far in 2026, exceeding the total for all of 2025.

That scale changes the competitive map. Sportsbooks compete through odds, promotions, same-game parlays and brand loyalty. Finance-linked platforms compete through trading interfaces, liquidity and the familiarity of buying and selling contracts. During a global tournament, those strengths can matter. Markets can update quickly, users can enter and exit positions and the product can be framed as trading rather than gambling.

The regulatory gap is now a commercial advantage

The core issue after the World Cup is whether prediction markets are exploiting a temporary loophole or building a durable alternative to sportsbooks. Federal oversight has allowed certain event-contract platforms to operate in states where sports betting remains illegal, while sportsbooks remain bound by state-by-state licensing. Prediction markets also can generally reach users at 18, compared with the 21-and-older standard that applies to many sportsbook customers.

Those differences help explain why the World Cup became an inflection point. Prediction markets had access, distribution and a product suited to tournament uncertainty. Sportsbooks had brand recognition and established betting accounts, but they also faced regulatory limits, higher promotional costs and product constraints in some states.

The stakes now extend beyond soccer. If prediction markets can capture a meaningful share of betting interest around the World Cup, the same model can be tested during the NFL season, March Madness, the Olympics and major political events. For sportsbooks, the response may require new exchange-style products, partnerships or lobbying for clearer rules. For regulators, the question is whether consumers understand the risks and whether sports event contracts should be treated more like financial instruments, gambling products or something in between.

The World Cup did not settle that debate. It made it harder to ignore.