The 2026 FIFA World Cup is on course to be the largest betting event ever recorded, with analytics firm GCI putting total global wagers at $593 billion and warning that 69% of that money will run through unregulated channels. The tournament, co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, is the first with 48 teams and 104 matches, and it arrives with legal sports betting far more widespread than it was for Qatar 2022.
The scale of the event is matched by FIFA’s own payday. The governing body is guiding toward roughly $13 billion in revenue across its 2023-26 commercial cycle, up about 72% on the $7.57 billion it booked over the Qatar cycle. For the single edition, FIFA’s take is projected to rise from around $7 billion at Qatar 2022 to about $8.9 billion in 2026, the biggest jump between two tournaments on record. Ticketing and hospitality income alone is expected to roughly treble to $3 billion, broadcast rights to climb from $3.1 billion to $4.3 billion, and sponsorship to reach $3.8 billion. Expanding the field from 32 teams to 48 lengthened the tournament and, with it, the betting calendar.
A more regulated field than Qatar
The tournament lands in a very different regulatory environment than 2022. Legal mobile sports betting now operates in 39 US states, up from about 30 during the last World Cup, with group games scheduled from midday into the evening on the East Coast, peak hours for sportsbook traffic.
Brazil is contesting a World Cup as a fully licensed market for the first time, after its regulated fixed-odds regime opened in January 2025. The market is already a major new source of volume, and analysts expect it to account for around 10% of global World Cup betting. Mexico, one of the three host nations, runs a permit-based system through the interior ministry (SEGOB). In Europe, the United Kingdom continues under the Gambling Commission (UKGC), Italy under the Customs and Monopolies Agency (ADM) with its 2018 advertising ban still in force, and Greece under the Hellenic Gaming Commission (HGC). Each licensed market gains channelisation from the event, but the rules on advertising, bonusing and prediction markets diverge sharply between them.
Operator traffic in the past 30 days
Web traffic over the past 30 days shows how fragmented the global audience is across brands and regions. The figures below rank operators by total monthly visits across all of their markets, not by World Cup activity alone.
| Operator | Monthly visits |
|---|---|
| Stake | 151.2M |
| Betano | 97.8M |
| SportyBet | 89.8M |
| caliente.mx | 55.9M |
| bet365 | 51.5M |
| Superbet | 45.7M |
| Betway | 41.2M |
| Sisal | 38.1M |
| Hollywoodbets | 35.7M |
| Stoiximan | 26.9M |
| FDJ | 25.4M |
| 1xBet | 22.3M |
| William Hill | 20.6M |
| Bovada | 17.25M |
| Novibet | 15.1M |
Source: Internet traffic analysis apps like Semrush, Ahrefs and Simillar web
Stake sits well clear of the field at 151.2 million monthly visits, ahead of Betano on 97.8 million and Africa-focused SportyBet on 89.8 million. Mexican-facing caliente.mx (55.9 million) and bet365 (51.5 million) lead the middle tier, followed by Superbet, Betway and Italy’s Sisal. The spread underlines that no single operator owns the World Cup audience: the traffic is split across crypto-native, African, Latin American and European brands, each strong in different host and follower markets.
On the pitch: Spain reach the final
Spain became the first team into the final, beating France 2-0 in the semi-final on 14 July. Mikel Oyarzabal scored from the penalty spot in the 22nd minute after Lamine Yamal won the foul, and Pedro Porro added the second in the 58th. Their opponent comes from the second semi-final between England and Argentina, played on 15 July, with that result still to be settled at the time of writing. The final is set for 19 July at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. France, the pre-tournament favourite on both bookmaker and prediction-market pricing, exits at the semi-final stage.
What operators are reporting
US operators are already reporting the strongest soccer engagement in their history. The opening matches involving the United States and Brazil were FanDuel’s two most-bet soccer games ever by active customers, and set all-time records for DraftKings by both handle and active customers.
The projected shares point to a market concentrated at the top. Deutsche Bank estimates FanDuel will take close to $1.3 billion in World Cup handle and DraftKings about $1.1 billion. Across the whole tournament, licensed US books are tracking toward $2.82 billion to $4.3 billion, roughly nine times the estimated $400 million legally wagered on Qatar 2022, when far fewer states offered mobile betting.
Prediction markets rival the sportsbooks
Prediction markets have turned into a parallel channel that, on volume, now dwarfs traditional books. Combined monthly volume on Kalshi and Polymarket rose about 75% to $44.8 billion in June, the first month of the tournament. Kalshi alone processed more than $30 billion, an 87% jump on May, while Polymarket hit a record $10.8 billion. By 13 July, Bitcoin.com counted $5.81 billion across 52 World Cup markets on the two platforms.
The Trillion-Dollar Trade: How Prediction Markets Are Reshaping US Sports Betting
The concentration is striking. Polymarket’s single World Cup winner contract held about $4.2 billion in volume, with Kalshi’s equivalent at roughly $1.17 billion. On the narrower question of a United States title, about $64 million traded on Kalshi and $122 million on Polymarket. These venues are contested territory for regulators: Spain has blocked both Kalshi and Polymarket, and Brazil banned prediction markets outright, while US regulators continue to argue over whether the contracts are trading products or gambling.
Global handle and the unregulated shadow
Across licensed markets worldwide, H2 Gambling Capital projects around $60 billion in regulated betting handle for the tournament. Its country splits put the United States at about $2.9 billion, Mexico at $2.5 billion and Canada at $300 million, with Brazil supplying roughly 10% of the global total and domestic activity there running into the hundreds of billions of reais. Demand is not confined to the host region: survey data cited by operators shows about 60% of UK fans and 64% of Italian fans intend to bet during the event.
The regulated figures sit inside a much larger, mostly illicit pool. GCI’s $593 billion estimate for total World Cup wagering implies roughly $409 billion flowing to illegal or unacknowledged operators, part of an unregulated market the firm values at $5.9 trillion a year in global staking. That handle measures every dollar staked, including money bet, won and staked again, so it is not directly comparable to gross revenue. The gap it exposes is the one licensed operators and regulators keep returning to: the biggest single beneficiary of a record World Cup remains the black market.
The final weekend will concentrate the heaviest betting of the tournament into a handful of matches, and the closing figures from FanDuel, DraftKings, Kalshi and Polymarket will set the benchmark that the next World Cup is measured against. The open question is how much of that money regulators can pull inside licensed channels, and whether prediction markets are counted as competitors to the sportsbooks or as gambling that needs a licence of its own.
Source: FIFA, GCI, Financial Reports
