Stacy Boit,
The Fifa Men’s World Cup is set to be the biggest betting event of all time, with more than $50bn (£37.4bn) in wagers placed globally.
The tournament will see punters place bets worth around $500m per match, according to a forecast by financial services firm Macquarie.
The expected $50bn total would be a major increase from the $35bn of wagers placed during the 2022 World Cup, which was held in Qatar.
Gambling awareness groups warned almost all punters lose money in the long-run, and that those betting during the World Cup risk being encouraged to try more addictive forms of betting.
Macquarie analyst Chad Benyon said the expected surge in gambling revenue is primarily due to an expansion of the number of teams at this year’s tournament, from 32 to 48.
As a result, there will be more than 100 matches over the six-week schedule, compared with the 64 played in Qatar in 2022.
The favourable time zones of hosts the US, Canada and Mexico will also boost global viewership, Benyon added, fuelling demand among punters in Europe, Latin America and Africa.
Another driver of the increase is the growing sports betting market in the US, with around 65% of the population now able to gamble on sports, up from 40% in 2022.
Macquarie’s report comes as regulations around online prediction markets in the US are poised to become stricter.
On Wednesday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) – the US regulatory body for prediction markets as well as oil and other commodity markets – proposed clamping down on bets on “terrorism, assassination, war, gaming, or conduct that is unlawful under federal or state law”.
Prediction markets have generated controversy because of how they allow users to bet against each other in a marketplace on topics like the Iran war and Ukraine war.
Following backlash, prediction market operator Kalshi no longer runs markets on those topics.
Its rival Polymarket still does, but it does not earn fees on them. It has previously told the BBC removing such markets would not affect the events themselves.
