FIFA Chief Infantino's Expanded Tournament Wager Proves Successful with Football Fans

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Infantino

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The World Cup has engaged punters like never before with an 80% increase in betting volume compared to the 2022 edition, even taking into account the higher number of matches for a 48-team tournament, a betting expert told AFP.

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Although many football fans were sceptical about the increase in the number of teams from 32 to 48, it appears punters have welcomed it.

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“We’ve seen an 80% increase in the ticket volume,” Darren Small, senior vice president of Managed Trading Services at Sportradar, told AFP.

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“So we’re seeing more bets and more active customers.

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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.”

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For Sunday’s final between Spain and defending champions Argentina, Small expects the company to be handling approximately 8.5 million betting tickets for their 250 bookmaking clients round the world.

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Sportradar is a global sports technology company that says it creates immersive experiences for sports fans and bettors.

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Small said even if the numbers have surprised the company, they anticipated an increase because of the expansion of the tournament to 104 games.

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“But we also expected it just because of the industry growth and general growth,” he added.

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England may have to wait another four years to try to add a second star to their 1966 triumph but they have topped the betting table.

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Indeed the four semi-finalists — also the top four FIFA-ranked teams — drew the most interest.

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England attracted approximately 16.3 million betting tickets ahead of France (15.5m), Argentina (15m) and Spain (14.5m).

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The games with the highest volume of betting tickets were England’s 2-1 semi-final defeat by Argentina, which generate approximately 5.8 million, England’s 2-1 quarter-final win over Norway (5.7m) and Spain’s 2-0 semi-final victory over 2018 champions France (5.3m).

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– ‘Switch off’ –

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David Stevens, head of public relations at historic English bookmaker Coral, said their concerns over the enlarged format had been put to rest by a group stage that threw up its fair share of surprises.

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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,” he told AFP.

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“But in the event, that was not the case at all.

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

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Chief among those was Cape Verde, who more than held their own against Argentina in the last 32, bowing out in a 3-2 thriller after extra-time.

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“Special mention must go to Cape Verde,” said Stevens.

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“The Islanders are every bookmakers’ new favourite team having held both Argentina and Spain to draws, so I suppose… to a large extent, those fears we had at the start didn’t really come back to bite us.”

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The increase in betting interest has been sparked also by offers not just on which team will win but on the individual players and a whole range of other potential outcomes.

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“You could be backing Messi to score with his left foot in the first 25 minutes, Spain to go on to win 3-1 and there to be 15 corners, 2 assists,” said Small.

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Perhaps spurred on by the success of the 48-team format, powerful FIFA president Gianni Infantino has dangled the possibility of enlarging it even further to 64.

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“Would we welcome an even bigger World Cup in four years? ‘No’ is the simple answer,” said Stevens.

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“There has to be a point at which fans and punters alike switch off as a result of too many games, and 64 teams feels very much like that point.

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“However, Mr Infantino wants it to happen, and therefore, it’s probably a safe bet that it will happen, such is his current power over FIFA.”

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