With a matter of days until the first ball is kicked, every operator has a plan in motion for the World Cup. Unless something has gone very wrong, marketing budgets have been finalised, acquisition campaigns are taking shape, and partnerships are getting into the swing of things like all the 26-man squads undergoing warm-weather training stateside.
The 2026 World Cup is likely to be the biggest betting opportunity North America has ever seen. Deutsche Bank has forecast up to $4.1 billion in handle from the U.S. alone during the tournament, which will feature a record 48 teams, 104 matches, and more opportunities than ever to legally bet.
The scale of the opportunity is truly enormous, and so is the temptation to view it primarily through the lens of customer acquisition. On its Q1 earnings call, the CEO of DraftKings characterised the tournament as an acquisition and engagement opportunity, rather than a profit driver.
And he is quite right: the expanded tournament offers operators a clear opportunity to attract new customers and build engagement during the world’s biggest sporting event. But a focus on acquisition without regard for retention is just an expensive way of finding out your product might be lacking.
Why a Sub-Par Betting Product Won’t Go the Full 90
When the new European domestic seasons start, the operators in the strongest position will be those who used the tournament as a tool to create habits via a positive user experience. Getting someone to place a first bet is valuable, but getting them to place a second and third when the fun and games of the World Cup is over is where the real opportunity lies.
The World Cup will introduce millions of people to sports betting who don’t normally partake. This is particularly true in the United States and Canada, which are co-hosting alongside Mexico for the first time in an era of legal domestic sports betting, and in a culture where the likes of Kalshi and Polymarket have cut through to the mainstream under a federal regulatory framework, albeit one that continues to face state-level challenges.
Some will be completely new to betting and others may only dip their toes in when they receive offers around major sports events. However, given the range of options and general digital literacy, few retail bettors will have the patience for a poor product experience.
Consumers have become accustomed to frictionless digital products in almost every aspect of their lives. Whether it’s ordering fast food from the couch or arranging a romantic rendezvous, everyone expects apps to work quickly and intuitively. Sports betting doesn’t get a free pass because of the excitement of correctly predicting the number of corners that Switzerland will win.
Building a Betting Product That Can Go Deep in the Knockout Rounds
It’s easy to talk about retention in abstract terms, but it’s usually the outcome of dozens of small and thoughtful product decisions, rather than one flashy breakthrough feature. For a casual World Cup bettor, the basics matter far more than operators sometimes appreciate.
Can they build a parlay without needing Pep Guardiola and a whiteboard to explain the process? Can they fund an account and place a bet quicker than Curaçao will concede its first World Cup goal? When they decide to bet in-play, are the odds keeping pace with the match better than a Scottish defender in the Miami heat, or lagging behind it?
None of these things reinvent the wheel, but that’s precisely the point. As any good football manager or Jake Humphrey fan will know, you have to get the basics right before you can succeed.
The operators that retain customers after the World Cup are unlikely to do so because they launched a flashy (and expensive) feature that generated headlines, but rather because the overall experience felt smooth, reliable and easy to return to. That’s especially important during a tournament where many customers are interacting with a sportsbook for the first time.
The Best Betting Products Perform When the Stakes Are Highest
With mass uptake and the introduction of a whole new customer base, major sporting events have a habit of exposing problems that go unnoticed during quieter periods. A live betting experience that feels perfectly acceptable on an average Wednesday night in February suddenly struggles when thousands of users start to strain the servers. Much like an ageing Portuguese forward who still wants to be the main character, performance issues become impossible to ignore.
That’s why the smartest operators are treating the World Cup as an opportunity to identify and fix product weaknesses before they become expensive. Many teams already know where those weaknesses are, but the challenge is finding the time and development capacity to address them, alongside everything else competing for attention. Regulatory work, roadmap commitments, market launches and day-to-day operational demands don’t disappear just because the World Cup is around the corner. This is where outsourced development can make a genuine difference as a complement to an in-house team, as it allows operators to move faster when timing matters most.
Whether it’s improving onboarding flows, refining a bet builder, optimising live betting performance or strengthening infrastructure ahead of traffic spikes, additional development capacity can help operators make meaningful product improvements before the tournament begins.
In the same way that a top football team might bring in set-piece coaches and psychologists to stay ahead of the competition, a top operator should consider outsourced development.
The Winning Operators Will Be Decided After the Final Whistle
When the trophy presentation, drama and controversies of the summer are long in the rear-view mirror, the gaming industry will have the data to measure the success of the tournament. In December, how many of those new World Cup customers are still logging in?
The winner likely won’t have shouted the loudest, or spent the most on marketing and acquisition. It will be the apps that proved this summer that they have built an experience worth coming back to.
The World Cup is undoubtedly the biggest acquisition opportunity in North American sports betting history. But like an international team whose philosophy and smart decision-making means they consistently perform at FIFA’s big jamboree time after time, the real winners will be the ones who view this summer as a retention opportunity.
