The 2026 FIFA World Cup kicks off next week with Canada, the U.S. and Mexico jointly hosting the mega event, and sports betting is expected to surge this year, a new report warns.
With more than 100 games held over six weeks, total betting volumes are expected to exceed US$50 billion worldwide, a report by investment bank Macquire released on Wednesday says.
For each game, the average wagers could exceed half a billion USD, the report added.
The growth of the sports betting market in the last four years, particularly in the U.S., has meant that 65 per cent of the population has access to legal betting markets, as opposed to 40 per cent during the 2022 World Cup, it said.
This edition of the World Cup comes with the skyrocketing popularity of soccer in Canada and the U.S. and has “the potential to introduce new behaviors and incremental wagering, further supported by North America hosting, favorable time zones, and improved product depth,” the report said.
Canadian sports betting companies see the World Cup as “a market-enhancing event,” said Bruce Kidd, professor emeritus of sport and public policy at the University of Toronto.
Ontario alone is likely to see a big surge in wagers this year, he said.
“With Ontario being a highly competitive market with more than 40 gambling companies competing for market share, you can be sure that they will be very aggressive in trying to not only shore up their consumer base, but add to it,” Kidd said.
For many Canadians, this could be the start of a dangerous slide into sports betting as the advertising becomes impossible to avoid, said Andrew Kim, associate professor at Toronto Metropolitan University’s department of psychology.