World Cup 2022 projected to draw $1.8 billion in sports betting
Yahoo Finance reporter Josh Schafer details how lucrative the 2022 World Cup in Qatar may be for sportsbooks.
Video Transcript
SEANA SMITH: The World Cup kicks off a Sunday morning with host country Qatar's match against Ecuador. But in the midst of American football season, there's a growing concern that time changes and the NFL might draw some attention away from this year's World Cup, at least for fans here in the US.
Josh Shafer has been following this story. And Josh, you're taking a look at this first from a sports gambling angle. How do you see those factors potentially influencing gambling here on the World Cup?
JOSH SCHAFER: Yeah, Seana. I went in looking at this and I thought, this is going to be a big two months for the sportsbooks. When you think about November, December, you combine the World Cup. NBA is now huge for a lot of these sportsbooks, too. An NFL season. I said wow, that's going to be probably some of the biggest handles we've ever seen.
But then when you step back and I talked to several CEOs from these companies and they said, it's going to be great. I would have loved it in July, though, when it's just the middle of baseball season and there's not a lot going on. And something that stuck out to me that FanDuel CEO Amy Howe told me was she said, there's not as many stars in soccer for US Soccer fans.
There's Christian Pulisic on the US team that we all know and love, and people are going to be rooting for the US. But outside of that, you only have a couple of international stars like Ronaldo and Messi that people can attract themselves to. And I want to talk a little bit about what's on the screen here. You can see these are projections from the American Gaming Association.
They projected $7.6 billion would be bet on the Super Bowl, $3.1 billion on March Madness, but only $1.8 billion at the World Cup this year. And that really stands out to me, Rachelle, because you can see $1.8 billion for the World Cup. There's going to be just about as many games. There's going to be 64 World Cup games, and there were 67 March Madness games last year and that's over a month span.
So you're seeing the interest is a lot more in basketball than soccer. And Rachelle, I know you're going to be very interested in this as a soccer fan, so I did pull up a little trivia for you. Who do you think people are betting on to win the World Cup? Where do you think most of the money lies here?
RACHELLE AKUFFO: I'm torn between Brazil and Argentina on this.
JOSH SCHAFER: All right.
RACHELLE AKUFFO: How close am I?
JOSH SCHAFER: You're right on it, yup. So we got Argentina's in the lead--
SEANA SMITH: Good job, Rachelle.
JOSH SCHAFER: Argentina's in the lead with the most money. You can see here, this is per Caesars Sportsbook. This is where the money lies right now. Argentina, Brazil, and then the United States.
SEANA SMITH: I'm shocked United States is [INAUDIBLE].
JOSH SCHAFER: Final point I'll make on the gambling thing here is, the sportsbooks are rooting for the US to keep winning.
SEANA SMITH: That makes sense.
JOSH SCHAFER: Because that's what carries interest, right? It's like when we talk about these golf tournaments, and everyone wants Tiger Woods to win because he's the only golfer anyone that doesn't watch golf knows. It's the same thing with soccer. Soccer fans-- and we know Argentina with Messi, and of course it's the US.
People will bet on the US. That's what PointsBet CEO told me, Johnny Aitken, and that's also what Caesars thinks as well. If the US keeps winning, it will be good for sportsbooks because people will keep paying attention.
