Infantino’s enlarged World Cup gamble pays off with punters

The expanded 48-team World Cup has proven to be a significant gamble for organizers, but it has paid off handsomely with bettors, generating an 80 percent increase in betting volume compared to the 2022 tournament. This surge surpasses expectations, even when accounting for the increased number of matches.

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We’ve seen an 80 per cent increase in the ticket volume. So we’re seeing more bets and more active customers.

Darren Small, senior vice president of Managed Trading Services at Sportradar, told AFP that the company has seen a substantial rise in both the number of bets and active customers. "We've seen record numbers and we've surpassed our expectations in terms of what we felt we were going to see," Small stated. For the final between Spain and Argentina, Sportradar anticipates handling approximately 8.5 million betting tickets for its 250 bookmaking clients globally.

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We’ve seen record numbers and we’ve surpassed our expectations in terms of what we felt we were going to see if we compare it to 2022, which is a little difficult because it was different as it was in the winter.

While many football fans initially expressed skepticism about the tournament's expansion, punters have clearly welcomed the change. Sportradar, a global sports technology company, anticipated an increase due to the 104 games but also noted the general growth within the betting industry. England, despite not reaching the final, topped the betting table, attracting around 16.3 million tickets, followed by France (15.5m), Argentina (15m), and Spain (14.5m).

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Our fear was there would be a large proportion of predictable results, with the so-called smaller nations offering little or no resistance to their established rivals. But in the event, that was not the case at all.

The most popular matches for betting included England's semi-final defeat by Argentina (5.8m tickets), their quarter-final win over Norway (5.7m), and Spain's semi-final victory against France (5.3m). David Stevens, head of public relations at Coral, noted that their initial fears of predictable group stage results were unfounded. "Throughout the group stage there were plenty of matches where the result did not go according to the betting," Stevens said, highlighting Cape Verde's strong performance against Argentina as a notable surprise that kept bookmakers engaged.

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Throughout the group stage there were plenty of matches where the result did not go according to the betting.