The FIFA World Cup is a cultural phenomenon. It draws viewers from across the globe, many of whom are not traditional football fans or regular bettors. It taps into national pride like no other sporting event and with this year’s expanded format of 48 teams instead of 32, the 2026 World Cup is expected to be the most viewed tournament ever, and the biggest ever for sportsbooks.

The World Cup always drives a spike in sportsbook activity and the last tournament in Qatar in 2022 attracted an audience of over five billion people across all platforms.

With this year’s tournament featuring matches played across the United States, Canada and Mexico, it gives operators the opportunity to tap into the growing interest in ‘soccer’ in the US and Canada, and to expand their reach in South America due to viewer friendly match times.

A selection of the industry’s leading operators and suppliers speak to Gaming Intelligence about the importance of the tournament from a customer acquisition and engagement perspective and explain what the sportsbooks have planned for what is expected to be their biggest betting event.

In part two of our sportsbook supplier series, we hear from Altenar and Genius Sports.

What the sportsbook suppliers say

Altenar

Thanos Ntakis, cross functional manager at Altenar, expects this year’s tournament to drive a large increase in Bet Builder activity.

“The World Cup is by far one of the most impactful events for our sportsbook business. Even compared to major domestic leagues or continental tournaments, the World Cup generates a substantial spike in volume, engagement, and new user activity,” says Ntakis. “It effectively compresses a huge number of high-profile matches into a short window, which drives both casual and seasoned bettors onto the platform.

“Fan engagement becomes much more universal during the World Cup. Even people who don’t normally follow football join in, which leads to higher pre-match traffic, much higher in-play betting, and a surge in novelty and player special markets.”

“At the 2022 World Cup, in-play betting experienced a surge in popularity and player markets grew significantly, especially goalscorers, but also side markets such as total shots and shots on target,” he adds. “Late goals heavily influenced bet volumes and there were regular spikes in the last 10-15 minutes of matches, while some unusual results prompted increased inplay action.

“For example, Saudi Arabia going 2-1 up against Argentina prompted a lot of betting, with many bettors convinced that Lionel Messi and his teammates would fight back against such an unfancied team. The tournament also highlighted how many punters like to support their home country regardless of the opposition.”

For the 2026 World Cup, Altenar’s focus is on providing a more data-driven and user-centric offering based on personalised content and recommendations tied to user behaviour. This will be backed up by more robust in-play availability, especially for fast markets, better risk segmentation due to improved analytics and trading tools, and tighter cross-team coordination to handle spikes in volume and operator requests.

“World Cup matchdays generate traffic peaks that we only see every four years,” says Ntakis. “Essentially, we’re preparing for scalability and user experience rather than just volume.”

“For this year’s tournament we are focusing on features that boost engagement, such as expanded Bet Builder options, more player-based markets, improved fast markets, and optimised mobile UX, since World Cup traffic is heavily mobile-driven. We will also be providing our clients with a wide variety of promo tools such as Boosted Odds, Enhanced Odds, 0% Margin, Bet Cards and Swipe Betting, all of which are designed to increase depth, flexibility and speed, which are all crucial for a tournament of this size.”

Ntakis also sees a niche for prediction markets and expects them to drive greater interest in betting while helping operators to understand sentiment and probability perception.

“Prediction markets add an interesting dynamic, especially as they appeal to more data literate users,” he explains. “While they’re not replacing traditional betting, they do increase user engagement pre-tournament and during the later stages. There is no limit to what they can offer. These markets give the freedom to punters to bet on anything that can happen during the tournament and the freedom to traders and odds compilers to push their imagination to the limits.”

Genius Sports

James McKiernan, commercial director at Genius Sports, says: “The World Cup is always a huge event for us and our customers. From operators in South Africa where the national team is back on the world stage for the first-time in 16 years to multi-territory giants like Flutter Entertainment, Entain and bet365, this summer’s tournament guarantees to be a major revenue and customer acquisition driver.

“The expanded 48-team format, with 40 extra games, is set to make it the biggest tournament yet. And for Genius, it’s about delivering the highest-quality inplay products all tournament-long. This means increasing live turnover and engagement for our customers, enabled by maximum market uptime, fast data and odds updates in the big moments like after every goal, and in-play bet builder to truly maximise the opportunity.

“With specialist iGaming advertising solutions like programmatic media buying, we also enable operators to maximise new sign-ups before a ball is kicked.”

McKiernan believes that bettor engagement with the World Cup differs from domestic football leagues because of its player-driven storylines. “That’s what drives turnover at major international tournaments. Fans want to bet on the real-time narrative. Every game matters, every game is on TV, and this shapes the in-play interaction,” he says.

“What’s most interesting? I’d say the power of bet builder. In the same way recreational bettors place Saturday accumulator bets, the World Cup brings this engagement to every single game. This is due to staggered kick-off times and widespread TV coverage. It’s why our betbuilder product, MultiBet, is such a proven, high margin product. Fans can build their pre-match or in-play betbuilders, with endless combinations, for example when Scotland take on Brazil in the group stage: McTominay to score next, Scotland to win, over 3.5 goals, under 8.5 corners.”

“Priorities across our global customer base are always evolving, with new opportunities constantly emerging, and we’re continuously investing to deliver solutions that keep pace,” he adds. “I’ve mentioned bet builder, and the role of player markets within this. With the majority of the 2026 World Cup being played on U.S. soil, and in the summer, rather than the November–December window we saw in 2022, I’m expecting U.S. sportsbooks to see a huge surge in betting turnover.

“We’re also working with operators in the newly regulated Brazilian betting market. This is the first World Cup since the country regulated online sports betting, and Brazil’s love for football needs no introduction. We expect huge home nation support, with Brazilian fans holding high hopes for their national team. Again, products like bet builder and highly effective marketing tactics are going to be key.

“Across the board, from in-play to Genius Trading Services, our focus remains consistent: deliver best-in-class sportsbook products and experiences.”

Genius Sports has invested heavily over the past few years in automated in-play modelling technology and expects to reap the rewards at this summer’s World Cup.

“Our in-play football model runs millions of simulations every match, delivering predictive pricing for all possible outcomes – before they even occur. It means our traders can rapidly update odds at key moments, including after a goal and VAR checks, meaning a better in-play experience and more profits for our customers,” says McKiernan.

“This also applies to bet builder. At the same time, our pricing automation software, Edge, brings customers’ unique liabilities into pricing by making incremental adjustments based on the weight of the bets. We’re expecting these solutions to deliver a real difference for operators during a vital World Cup tournament.”

“Anyone who worked in the betting industry four years ago remembers the 2022 World Cup Final,” he adds. “Six goals, extra time, penalties, 11 corners, eight yellow cards, a Mbappé hat-trick, Messi scoring twice, the game had absolutely everything. And naturally, that led to some pretty sizeable betbuilder payouts.

“Matches like that drive betting on the big teams and players, and every fan has an opinion,” McKiernan concludes. “So I’m anticipating even more bet builder activity this time around, especially in-play, where fans love reacting to the game as it unfolds.”

Part 1 – FIFA World Cup: Sportradar and Kambi offer perspectives