The analysis of the recent 2018 World Cup in Russia reveals a betting turnover of $136 billion. And If you don’t have an idea where to make a sportsbook, you better find one soon. Look at the numbers for one tournament alone. You will see the potential of the action you can get in on. Let’s take a look at the whole FIFA 2018 World Cup experience.
Sportradar has a Fraud Detection System. They used this system to help determine the figures. Also, they tracked the action of over 550 sports betting operators across the globe. There were instances where alerts came out. But upon careful review, FIFA said it was explainable by the market adjusting. This was due to the opening odds after the first two matches.
FIFA also mentioned that Croatia was a profitable team for bookies. Of course, it was because of the high opening odds. They also had a lot of underdog victories and the team had the highest turnover for betting per match. This was out of all the teams in the tournament.
A lot of sportsbook companies announced increases in revenues for the first half of 2018. It was largely due to the World Cup. Some Sportsbook operators announced increases of up to 13% revenue in the second quarter. Even as far as Taiwan, there was a spike in the sports lottery last June.
As a bookie with your own sportsbook operation, you would be thinking it is impossible for you to be earning a lot. Even from one tournament alone. And while that may be true, even a piece of the $136 billion is not bad. If you have a lot of players who are mostly recreational bettors, they would have bet on favorites. Some of those favorites (England and France excluded) bowed out early on (Spain). Some exceeded expectations, and the underdogs would have given bookies great profit.
All in all, it was one of the most exciting World Cup tournaments we have seen. And from the revenue reported, the action was very good as well.
