As the 2026 World Cup becomes an always-on digital betting event, Jeevan Jeyaratnam, Chief Betting Officer at Abelson Sports speaks with iGaming News about the rise of micro betting, narrative-driven bet builders and the tech infrastructure operators will need to keep fans engaged throughout the tournament.
What betting formats are most relevant for World Cup audiences?
JJ: Tournaments can help revive outright betting, which has faded from its former glories in recent times. Betting experiences, like our attention spans, have become shorter; micro betting and bet builders the biggest beneficiaries. The idea of tying up money for 8 months before knowing a result would seem alien to many younger bettors. Tournaments offer an opportunity to redress that balance. A pre-tournament outright bet on the eventual tournament winner, golden boot and a group winners accumulator are all popular bets.
There’s no escaping the lure of the bet builder and it is this product that is set to be the most popular type of wager seen throughout the tournament. Operators will be hoping that the expanded nature of the tournament doesn’t result in too many one-sided goalfests, like we saw at the World Club Championship last summer. One other product that is set to share the limelight this summer is micro betting. The evolution of this product is sure to have an impact on revenues and, from a tech point-of-view, will provide a fair test for delivery mechanics and back-end systems.
How can suppliers help operators build engagement throughout the full tournament journey, not just matchday peaks?
JJ: Engagement is built around creating a story; to create a story you need a wide scope of player markets and a suitable theme to link elements together. People look for confirmation biases, something to latch onto, or follow. When presented with a well-framed pre-canned bet builder, a large subset of recreational customers are more likely to bet on it than spend time creating their own. This provides a great opportunity to build stories and engage punters with a particular angle.
Note that bet365 have started giving its pre-canned bet builders snappy titles- this is all about building a narrative and can be effective. Adding in the “fire” emoji and displaying the number of other people also following the bet is another gamification hook that gives a punter reassurance that others also think that a wager is a “good one”. Cross-selling bettors to other verticals is a key strategy for operators, if those verticals feature World Cup themes too then they are all the better for gaining traction. Virtual products, streaming, casino games and fantasy verticals are all there to keep the bettor engaged longer.
What will the World Cup reveal about the future of sportsbook UX and always-available football products?
JJ: I wouldn’t expect to see any dramatic new UX, the engagement and excitement will already be there. The most important thing for a sportsbook to be able to do is offer a seamless and slick experience. That is unlikely to come with sweeping UX and UI changes on the eve of the tournament. Arguably, the biggest and most important part of the puzzle is to ensure the back-end systems can cope with demand. There’s little point having an overly flashy front-end if the back-end falls over.
Football, as a product, has been “always-available” for years, whether it be a real, virtual or sim match, there is always a football bet to be placed.
An interesting angle for this World Cup will be the availability of official streaming via StatsPerform. Operators signing up to StatsPerform’s World Cup package will be able to broadcast live pictures of the matches, while overlaying the latest betting prices. This is the first time FIFA has permitted betting operators to show its showcase event on their sites and apps. StatsPerform also has the official data collection rights and as such, has created a strong proposition for operators to maximise client engagement and retain eyeballs on site.
