World Cup goals spree by star players proves costly for gambling companies

{"text":[[{"start":7.25,"text":"High-scoring star players and victories for popular teams have made the opening stage of the World Cup costly for gambling companies, which are hoping the tournament will attract a lucrative cohort of new customers. "}],[{"start":20.85,"text":"US sportsbook DraftKings, one of the world’s largest online betting brands, lost as much as $50mn in the group stage of the tournament, according to estimates by Bank of America. "}],[{"start":31.35,"text":"The estimated losses come after gambling companies invested heavily in novel in-play bets and promotions around the World Cup, as they battled to make the most of an expected football betting bonanza and defend their turf against the rise of prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi. "}],[{"start":48.25,"text":"Jordan Bender, an analyst at investment bank Citizens, said sports betting groups, brokerage companies and prediction markets were “all converging to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire customers” during the World Cup. "}],[{"start":62.1,"text":"Popular multi-leg bets — known as accumulators in the UK and parlays in the US — proved particularly costly when Lionel Messi, Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappé scored twice each on last Tuesday, analysis by Bank of America found. "}],[{"start":77.35,"text":"Parlays, which deliver a big payout if a punter makes a series of correct predictions, are typically very profitable for gambling companies because there is a low likelihood of all legs of the bet coming good for the customer. "}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":90.44999999999999,"text":"Betting on all three star players to score was a popular parlay, according to Bank of America. Gamblers who bet all three would score at least twice — an outcome priced at a probability of around 1 per cent — netted a particularly large windfall."}],[{"start":106.54999999999998,"text":"DraftKings declined to comment on the estimated losses. Chief executive Jason Robins had previously told the FT that the tournament would be “a huge focal point for customer acquisition”."}],[{"start":119.54999999999998,"text":"Sportsbooks employ teams of analysts to calculate probabilities and profit by building a margin into the odds they offer to consumers. They tend to make the most money when favourites underperform, as casual bettors generally back their home teams and wager on star goalscorers. "}],[{"start":136.74999999999997,"text":"Bettors also tend to back their own national teams, meaning the performance of squads from large betting markets such as the US and England is particularly significant. The strong performance of the US team so far was “the biggest liability” for most sportsbooks in America, said Bank of America analyst Julie Hoover. "}],[{"start":155.39999999999998,"text":"England’s 4-2 victory over Croatia, which drew the highest stakes in the tournament’s group stage, was costly for DraftKings’ major rival Flutter, which owns brands including Paddy Power, Sky Bet and FanDuel. Flutter’s UK customers won £4.1mn on the match, but the company said England’s 0-0 draw against Ghana “more than balanced the books”. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":179.49999999999997,"text":"Macquarie analyst Chad Beynon said the tournament would likely not be “a near-term revenue driver”, but believed companies could still benefit from expanding brand awareness in order to ultimately “cross-sell into higher-margin products like [online casino]”. "}],[{"start":195.29999999999998,"text":"Flutter chief executive Peter Jackson told the FT in May that his company had benefited from the 2022 World Cup despite “losing a lot of money” when Argentina beat France on penalties in the final. “Even now, when I think about the impact that competition had for us, I don’t think about that money we lost, because actually, we provided great entertainment.”"}],[{"start":226.14999999999998,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1783064119_2819.mp3"}