US Bettors Enjoyed Betting on World Cup Finals

Numbers by GeoComply show that the sport is fast becoming popular in North America, and the fact that the 2026 tournament will be hosted there only sweetens the pot further.

World Cup Second Only to NFL

Canada-based fraud prevention and cybersecurity firm GeoComply released data on sports betting in the US. It was focused on the number of geolocation checks that were made during several final matches, and other related data. The FIFA World Cup final match between France and Argentina was the second most-popular choice for US sports bettors.

The World Cup championship match garnered 7.9 million geolocation transactions, which put it ahead of the NBA final at 5.1 million and the NCAA final which was at 4.8 million. Last on the list provided by GeoComply was the NHL Stanley Cup final, which was sitting at approximately 1.9 million geolocation transactions for that single match.

These numbers, however, were dwarfed by the number one championship match. That was, as many probably expected, this year’s Super Bowl. GeoComply’s data shows that it attracted 23.5 million geolocation transactions, which towers over the numbers of what the other championships managed to attract for their final matches. It’s also the most well-established event in the US, so this is rather normal.

The World Cup also stepped on the toes of the NFL this year, however, with the former having a changed schedule, and starting in the fall. This was done to avoid any potential harm to the players during Qatar’s notoriously hot summers, during which days regularly get extremely hot – often above 110 degrees (43 C) – obviously unsafe for sports.

US Interest in Soccer Growing

However interesting these numbers might seem, there’s a story that’s arguably more important, told by the number of active bettors. While GeoComply’s numbers for unique user accounts for the sports finals in 2022 tell a similar story, there are a few differences, and one of them is key to busting a myth about US bettors.

And that myth is that US fans aren’t interested in soccer. The FIFA World Cup finale attracted 1.7 million unique user accounts. The Super Bowl garnered 3.1 million, which is still a lot more. However, while the number of geolocation transactions was more than three times bigger, as evident by the figures, this wasn’t the case for the number of unique accounts. This indicated that the discrepancy in the first metric doesn’t stem from the number of fans but from their activity. It’s also noteworthy that this was the first World Cup in which US fans could place bets with US-regulated operators. The US team got to the Round of 16, giving fans more time to root for their home team.

The Qatar World Cup 2022 has attracted around a million new accounts from North America (NA), according to GeoComply, which is great news for bookies. With the World Cup 2026 being jointly hosted by the US, Canada, and Mexico, the interest in soccer in NA is all but guaranteed to grow, especially in the US which will host 60 of 80 tournament matches.