Heading into the second match of the FIFA World Cup’s group stage against Australia, the USA men’s national team has already become the betting sensation that sportsbooks were expecting before the tournament began.
Key Takeaways
- USA-Paraguay was one of the most bet-on soccer events ever.
- The Americans are priced around -170 in Friday’s second match.
- Tickets continue to come in on the home team and a star goalscorer.
“Record game last Friday, and I fully expect it to be another record this coming Friday,” Dominic Hammond, the Senior Vice President of Sports at Caesars Digital, told Covers this week.
For the online operator, the USA team’s opening match last week against Paraguay, a 4-1 win for the host country, generated the highest handle on soccer that the Las Vegas-based gaming company has ever seen.
Hammond said there was a 55% gap between USA-Paraguay and second place, Brazil-Morroco, which was played a day later.
“The interest in the U.S. is just nothing we’ve ever seen on soccer,” Hammond said.
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Lucrative start
Caesars wasn’t the only operator to experience a wagering windfall. FanDuel told Covers that USA-Paraguay and Brazil-Morocco were the top two soccer games of all time by actives.
DraftKings reported that the U.S.’s first World Cup match on home soil since 1994, 24 years before legal sports betting launched, was the most-bet game of the tournament so far “by a significant amount.” BetMGM said it set high marks for the group stage in both total bets and handle.
“I guess that's surprising in and of itself, but look, it's the U.S. team in the U.S., so is it really surprising? Probably not,” Hammond said. “It would not surprise me if we beat the record one week later with the Australia game. We set a record, the team played great, and we're still writing U.S. tickets.”
With plus odds and 90% handles at multiple sportsbooks, bettors got off to a lucrative start to the tournament. Hammond described continued U.S. success and a potential deep run after the Group stage as “expensive” for the operator.
The second match
After firing off as a small dog last Friday, the U.S. enters the Australia match at -176 at Caesars. Hammond said Caesars has seen 87% of the money backing the home-soil team.
“It’s about as one-sided as you can imagine,” Hammond said.
At 93% of the bets and 95% of the handle, DraftKings reported the largest U.S. support with odds of -170. FanDuel, which lists the Americans at -165 on the moneyline, said the home squad is getting a more modest 79% of wagers but still taking 89% of the money.
BetMGM has seen 87% of tickets and 92% of handle on the USA team (-165) to win on the moneyline, with 4% of the money on Australia and the draw.
“We do expect to see similar betting volume and interest as the first match, especially after the USA’s dominant win, which has many fans excited about this team,” BetMGM PR Data Insights Coordinator Samer Yassir told Covers.
Betting Balogun
The moneyline isn’t the only way bettors are scooping up tickets for Friday’s match. Both teams to score has been an incredibly popular market in every match. And player props tickets have been flying around as well with the onslaught of goals that were scored earlier this week by Norway’s Erling Haaland, France’s Kylian Mbappe, and Argentina’s Lionel Messi.
USA’s Folarin Balogun got off to a great start last week with a brace against Paraguay. He’s +160 at Caesars to score a goal against Australia and +625 to do it twice.
Balogun went from +12,500 to win the Golden Boot, given to the top goalscorer in the tournament, to +2,800 following the first match, after U.S. bettors flooded that futures market with bets on the American player, Hammond said.
Catching on
Sports betting operators knew that with the expanded World Cup, which features a total of 104 matches, on U.S. and Canadian soil, it would create a wagering event unlike anything they’ve seen since PASPA was overturned in 2018 and legal sportsbooks caught fire across America. There are now 39 U.S. states with sports betting, and prediction markets with World Cup contracts are nationwide.
Caesars began preparing for the craze last fall when the operator rebuilt its soccer trading model, something that hadn’t been done since the gaming company purchased famed British sportsbook William Hill in 2021. Hammond said they brought in six traders from the U.K. who specialize in soccer to keep up with the pricing on robust market offerings. Even retail betting, especially near locations where matches have been played, has greatly increased.
Even more challenging, Hammond said, has been educating U.S. customers on how soccer wagering works. To help with that, Caesars introduced a Parlay Your Bracket feature that’s similar to college basketball, as well as the Flex Parlay and Spin2Win daily game that’s attracted more casual bettors.
