Did you see different player behaviour between customers acquired during the group stage and those who joined during the knockout rounds?
Players who came in during the group stage had more time to build habits. Tey explored more markets, returned across multiple matchdays, and provided operators with more data to personalize the experience.
Knockout-stage customers were more event-driven. Te stakes were higher, attention was focused on the biggest teams and players, and the journey was much shorter.
With group-stage players, you could build loyalty over time. With knockout players, you had to understand their intent very quickly and give them a relevant reason to stay once the big match was over.
What trends emerged from your platform data around player behaviour before, during, and after the World Cup that operators may not yet fully appreciate?
Before and during the tournament, sentiment didn’t always follow the strongest sporting signal. Among the four semifinalists, Spain attracted just 11.6 per cent of betting volume going into the semifinals, despite ultimately winning the tournament. Argentina, meanwhile, was the most-bet team across the entire World Cup.
We also saw a very clear split between volume and value. Matches involving Spain, Argentina, England, and France generated 42 per cent of total turnover, while South Africa attracted fewer bets but an average stake of around 1.5 times the tournament average. Haiti was the opposite, with average stakes 45 per cent below average.
As the tournament got more serious, so did the money. Average stakes were 53 per cent higher in the play-offs and 89 per cent higher in the final than the tournament average. Afterward, the big lesson was that those behaviors are incredibly useful for retention. You suddenly know which teams, markets, and moments matter to each player. Operators that use that data to personalise what comes next have a much better chance of keeping the relationship going.
Did AI, automation, and real-time analytics become essential during the World Cup, or are human trading teams still the deciding factor when handling an event of this scale?
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Tey did, but I wouldn’t say they replaced the human trading team. At the World Cup scale, there’s simply too much happening too quickly for people to manage everything manually. AI and automation are great at spotting shifts in exposure, unusual behaviour, fraud signals, or churn risk in real time. Analytics gives traders visibility into where demand is concentrating before it becomes a problem.
But football is still football. Injuries, team news, unexpected results, changing sentiment - there are moments where context and human judgment really matter.
So I see it as a partnership. Automation handles the speed and scale; experienced traders make the calls that require judgment. Te strongest operators are giving their people better technology so they can make better decisions faster.
Were there any common mistakes operators made that limited either performance or player retention?
Yes, the biggest mistake was treating the World Cup as one big traffic spike rather than a series of distinct player moments.
Across the wider market, a common mistake was relying too heavily on pre-tournament forecasts, generic promotions, and average-traffic assumptions. Demand moved quickly between teams, markets, and stages of the competition, so operators that couldn’t adjust in real time risked overspending in the wrong areas or missing where the most value was being built. On retention, the same thing applied. Acquisition was relatively easy during the tournament; keeping those players was harder.
So the common mistake was really a lack of flexibility. Te World Cup rewards operators who can adapt quickly, not the ones who stick most closely to the original plan.
What lessons from this World Cup will directly influence how sportsbook platforms evolve?
I think the biggest shift will be toward sportsbooks that are much more adaptive by design. Operators need to be able to change navigation, featured markets, promotions, limits, and content without waiting on development teams. During a tournament, priorities can shift within hours, so flexibility has to be built directly into the product.
But adaptability only matters if the experience is fast. UX quality and load speed are becoming just as important as the
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